


Spider and Fox

by cat_herder



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Community: snkkink, Explicit Sexual Content, Gore, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:08:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_herder/pseuds/cat_herder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The heirs of the two most important rival demon clans, the Spiders and the Foxes, are kidnapped together as part of a mysterious plan. Starting out as enemies, Eren and Jean find themselves stricking an unlikely friendship in the face of horrible events. But can this friendship survive the intrigues of the Court, the violence of a merciless world, their difference in status and tradition, and their own stubborness?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [this](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/13546.html?thread=8773866#cmt8773866) prompt on the kinkmeme, which also contains all the chapters posted so far, so if you want to read ahead you can. I'll catch up on this account soon enough, and I'll be revising as I go so I highly recommend you read on here, but I really want to give OP credit for the plot idea.
> 
> Things you should know about this fic:
> 
> \- The setting is vaguely based on Japanese mythology, but I'm really running with it. Nowadays it's mostly a Japanese-influenced generic version of AOT's own weird fantasy-but-not-really setting with magic. Like the unholy progeny of Hajime Isayama and Rumiko Takahashi, but educated in the West by a total dweeb. It's hopefully interesting enough that people can overlook the inaccuracies and general silliness. Basically I am embarrassed with how much backstory I came up with for this but I also can't stop coming up with more, you feel me. If you want to be hit with a barrage of WORDS ask me about the setting and what demon is everybody, most definitely.
> 
> \- Because of the differences in the setting, the characters might also be somewhat OOC at part. I'll work hard to avoid it, thought. Literally everybody will appear sooner or later, but since the fic is very Jean and Eren centric, I didn't want to clog up the character tags by mentioning the ones who appear only shortly. Also, everybody is aged up - about three or four years older.
> 
> \- Eventual Erejean. There will be other pairings, but like with the characters, since most of them are side or minor pairings, I don't want to clog their respective tags with every update of this fic. The most prominent one will be Yumikuri, tho, so I hope you're into that. There will be also some Jean X OC and Eren X OC - I'm going somewhere with that, bear with me. 
> 
> \- Please heed the warnings. I'm terrified by the idea of somebody coming across this by mistake. Just like in the AOT canon, we're not rooting for the good guys as much as for the less ungood ones, and nobody has ever heard of stuff like human rights, PTSD or not being a dick. This is not a feelgood fic. Well, _I_ am having fun with it, but I am a horrible person. 
> 
> \- I don't know how long this will be, but I have the attention span of a kitten, so my fics are never, like, epic lenght. This is an exception (it's already much longer than what I expected, and we're not even halfway), but realistically I still don't think this will go beyond 20 chapters. And now watch this become an eighty chapters nightmare with fifteen spinoffs and entire cities of OCs.

The first time Eren sees the Prince, there isn't anything remotely princely about him.

He can tell he's a Fox, oh, he can smell them from kilometers. And he can tell he's from a rich family by the grandness of his clothes, by the clinking of his jewellery as he's thrown in the other corner of the room. 

But he can tell he's a Prince only because the man calls him that, with a snide little smile.

"There you go, _Your Highness_. I do hope the place is up to your standards."

The Prince barely ears him - he just jumps up and runs to the door as the man is closing it, slams uselessly his fists against it.

"Give it back!" he yells. "Give it back, it's mine, give it back! My dad will kill you! My mom will kill you! Give it back! Give it back!"

Eren snarls and hisses. The man really wants to torture him, putting one of _them_ in here with him.

The noise makes the Fox turn his head with a sudden jerk. Eren can tell the exact second he finds him in the darkness - his eyes widen and his nostrils flare, and he straightens, schools his expression into a serious, sober one, obviously trying to regain his dignity.

Eren evaluates him with a serene grin, making himself comfortable in his corner. He's still not sure about the man's intentions, not enough that he can relax - but he knows he's more comfortable in this damp, dark cell than the Fox, who's used to clear night skies and open air, and that's enough to give his grin a smug edge.

He's elegantly dressed, the Fox, white silk with red overcoat, white throw of fur over one shoulder, pearls and fangs and laqued red jewelry. He looks human, and if it wasn't for Eren's nature he could have easily mistaken him for a normal rich young master, but the glow of his skin and clothes keep something supernatural about him. The crest on his clothes is indeed that of the Imperial House, the cherry blossom, and Eren's eyes narrow upon gazing onto it.

He's _dressed_ as a Prince, that's sure. It still doesn't make him one.

The Fox suddenly interrupts his observations.

"A Spider, of course. Should've guessed there would be _your people_ behind this ploy."

And with this, within less than a minute since their aquaintance, he's already managed to piss off Eren more than words can adequately express.

"You...you...I'm in this cell! With you!"

"And so? Your people likes dark slimy holes."

"You fucking asshole!"

Eren jumps him - or, better, attempts to, but the chains around his wrists and ankles rattle and pull him back to sit down.

The Fox's eyes widen. Of course, he didn't notice them - he can't see well without moonlight. But Eren, too, forgot them for a moment, and he slumps down in embarrassment.

"...I see," the Fox says, at length. He exposes his wrists, showing cuffs with elaborated marks, similar to those on Eren's, thought they aren't chained. "You're a captive, just like me."

"Yeah, brilliant observation."

"Why did he capture us, then?"

The Fox asks this with the proprietary tone of somebody who's demanding answers from a servant. It makes Eren snarl.

"Do I look like I fucking know?"

"Well, you look like a lowlife who likes to wallow in misery and mud, so I thought you'd know what the other lowlife thinks."

"Fuck you! Do not lump me in with that asshole! Do you know how long I've been chained here?"

"Yeah, those chains...They don't look very thick," the Fox notices, curious, not unkind. "Your kind should be able to break such things with brute force. Is it because of the cuffs? Are yours magic, too?"

Eren is taken aback for a moment by the Prince's sudden change in demenour. 

He nods. 

"They're cursed, or some other shit. They burn, they sap my energy...and I've been hanging here for three days, now, with no food or drink, and you come here and accuse me of..."

Eren turns his head to the side, trying to hide how weak he is, how winded the short speech has made him already. 

He snarls and hisses when the Prince moves close to him to observe his chains, and the other makes a tsk-tsk noise.

"Silly Spider. I just want to take a look."

"If there was any way to cut throught these, I would've," Eren mutters.

But he lets him come closer, because the magic of a Fox is strong, and that of one from the Imperial Family, even if not precisely the Prince, is stronger, and while the Foxes aren't in the habit of being merciful to Eren's clan, maybe, since they're both captives...

"Yes, cursed, just like mine," the Prince confirms under his breath, a speculative expression on his face as he studies the damage made by the bindings on Eren's skin, the writings impressed in the metal itself. "I've seen some of those characters. It's magic of the dead. Ancient. Dangerous."

"So?" Eren asks expectantly. 

"So what?"

"Set me free!"

The Prince sits down with a sigh.

"I can't."

"You...But...Those should be easy game for you."

"If they were, wouldn't I have set myself free from mine, first?"

Eren snorts.

"Who are you, the runt of the litter? Just my luck."

The Prince nervously runs his hand on his face. "Shut up."

"Should've been able to tell from your face. Foxes of the Imperial Family are supposed to be beautiful, right? You look more like a horse than a Fox. Maybe you stole those clothes."

"I _am_ the Prince, you bastard _thing_!" the Fox says, standing up to his full height now, straightening his spine. For a moment, the glow that accompanies him intensifies, and Eren catches a glimpse of his Other Face.

Eren licks his lips. Poor baby princeling had his honor hurt. He's dubbing him Runt.

"Then, what the fuck is going on?"

Runt does that tired gesture of rubbing his face again, and swallows. "He...took away my power."

"How does one even go about doing that?!"

"Like I'd tell anybody from your betrayer, dirt-dwelling clan," Runt says with a superior expression.

"Hey, fuck you! I'm not the idiot who got their power stolen."

"No, you're the idiot who let himself be hung from the ceiling. What did he do, did he lure you into a trap?"

Eren's eyes widen, and he turns his head to the side again, his cheeks burning.

"Ooooh, really? A Spider? Lured into a trap?" He can hear the smug grin on Runt's face.

"Shut up! Say another word and I'm spitting venom in your dumb face!"

Runt seems to ponder adding something for a moment, but decides against and turns his head to the door.

Eren studies him a little more. Maybe his assessment before was a bit cruel - his profile is sharp, with a nice jawline. He does look Fox-like enough.

Not that he would know how a Fox normally looks from experience. This is literally the first time he talks to one. Hell, it's the first time he sees one so up close. No respectable member of the Spider clan mixes with the Foxes or their allies, and vice-versa.

Foxes don't look as ferocious as he imagined they would, Eren concludes. Or at least, his princeling doesn't. For all the atrocities he knows the Fox clan has committed, this one looks like he wouldn't be able to hurt a fly.

Then again, Foxes are deceptive, aren't they? Last thing Eren wants to do is to let himself slip into complacency because of a pretty face. And Runt _is_ hiding his Other Face, after all. Who knows in what other ways he's manipulating how he looks.

Runt suddenly turns his head, with that jerky movement again, his eyes shining like golden coins in the dark. Eren turns his face immediately, but it's too late - he's been caught staring.

Runt is smug for a fraction of a second, but his face falls quickly, and, instead, he sighs again and starts rummaging inside his robe.

He pulls out a flask and a package carefully wrapped in silk, and moves close to Eren.

"I have water and food. Don't spit your poison in it. We might have to make it last for us both for a little bit."

Eren's eyes widen again, and he blinks. He carefully swallows the poison that has been building up in his mouth before nodding. 

Runt nods back and puts the flask and the opened package - a box of dumplings - in front of Eren, within reach of his chained hands. 

The food is delicious, unlike anything Eren has ever tasted, and the water down his throath is like life itself, and Eren eats and drinks noisily.

Runt chuckles, and Eren is suddenly reminded of his manners. He finishes eating and swallows, cleans his mouth with his arm.

Runt wordlessly takes everything back and puts it away again.

"Thank you, I guess," Eren mutters, not looking at him.

"You're welcome, I guess," Runt answers, parroting him.

"Ugh, sorry for offending your delicate princeling sensibilities," Eren says, even if he _does_ feel the tiniest bit self-conscious.

"Pffff, like I give a damn," Runt says. 

His smile his still more like a smirk, but there's a kinder note in it, and Eren feels the tiniest bit of a smile surfacing on his own face.

"You don't happen to have a weapon hidden in there, eh?"

Runt shakes his head. "Nope. He drugged me, put these" he lifts up a cuffed wrist "on me and took all my swords and my hidden dagger, too." He lets his eyes fall to the ground, following his own trail of thought for a moment. "Knew exactly where to find it." 

"Yeah, he did the same to me. I was barely able to move, he had filled me with some drug, but I still noticed he was so quick! Like he knew where everything was. Still took the chance to put his filthy hands everywhere, though."

"Ugh, I know. He was so copping a feel, the pervert. Anyway, you sure you don't know this guy? Not in the sense that you're accomplices, but...maybe he's a known face?"

Eren shrughs.

"I dunno. Most humans look the same to me."

"But he's not most humans. He knew exactly what to do to...and the bindings...he's aware of secrets most creatures don't dare gaze upon. He has been setting this up for a long time, studying, gathering everything he needs...But what can a human want with a Spider and a Fox?"

Eren ponders this.

"Maybe he knows our clans are enemies and he wants us to fight. Like, for his entertainment."

Runt frowns.

"But then..."

Suddenly, the door is slammed open, and the man is there, outlined in the light.

Runt reacts faster - he's up, punching at the man, yelling "give it back, give it back!" again.

However, the man is apparently no longer willing to put up with him - he backhands him with enough energy to send him sprawling on the ground, kicks him while he's down until he's breathless.

The man puts a foot on Runt's chest to keep him down.

"Do you want to fight, Your Highness?" He chuckles, bends on his waist until he's within Runt's reach. "Then, _fight_. See what happens."

Runt doesn't need it repeated - cuff or not, his arm moves quickly, and his nails sink in the man's face.

Eren suddenly feels a rippling pain, from the angle of his jaw down on his throath - he screams, half in surprise half in terror, and watches with wide eyes the blood spraying out of him, down on the floor.

The pain and the sudden blood loss are enough to make his vision dizzy for a long moment, and when he comes to, it's to Runt desperately calling "Spider, Spider!"

Eren would like to reassure him, that this isn't enough to kill him, he can grow everything back in two hours, but instead of words all that comes out of his throath is a gurgling sound and more blood.

Runt takes off his overcoat to press it against Eren's neck, to dampen the bleeding, and Eren must be really out of it because his first instinct is to say "there's no need to ruin your nice clothes for me, really."

Behind them, the man is laughing like this is the funniest shit he's ever gazed upon.

"What the fuck..." Runt says, when he's finally reassured Eren isn't going to die on him. "What is this? What have you done?"

"Oh, just a little bit of magic. Nothing like using your own weapons against yourself, eh?"

"I hit you, but the wound..." Runt says, his eyes still wide with terror. "I almost killed him! You almost made me kill him!"

"Oh, no, don't worry, those like him have a thick skin. And really, all that guilt over hurting a Spider? I thought for a Fox this would be normal."

"That was _years ago_. I wouldn't...I would never...Spider, can you hear me?"

Eren nods, still a bit dizzy, but his mind a little bit more clear.

Runt nods back, takes a couple deep breaths.

He keeps one hand pressed on the cloth on Eren's neck, but he turns his head towards the man with the suddent movement Eren is starting to associate with him.

"You...the binding of these chains...they bind us. Whatever harm I do, to anybody, including _you_ , appears on him. Whatever blood I try to shed, it's _his_ blood."

The man smirks and starts walking towards them.

"You're a smart one, aren't you, Your Highness? By the way, the vice-versa is also true."

He pulls back Runt by a shoulder and grabs Eren by the hair to look at him in the eyes.

"Did you hear me, you useless insect? Try anything funny and your new friend here will suffer. Bite me, and your teeth will sink in his meat. Spit at me, and he will be the one breathing in your poison. Is that clear?"

Eren nods, still dizzy. 

The man lets him go and undoes the chains from where they're dangling, pulls them away from all the rings on the cuffs, so that Eren is in the same condition of Runt - with the cuffs on ankles and wrists but not chained to anything.

Then, the man collects the chain in a couple long coils, careful to avoid touching a part of it that has nails fused to some rings, pointing out. Eren had already noticed them and wondered what are they for. An idea is forming in his brain, and he doesn't like it.

Runt moves back towards Eren, frowning, deep in thought.

"But why? Why not simply rig it so that the harm appeared on ourselves? Why involve another person, why..."

"Let's say...I'm making sure you two will behave."

Eren coughs, spits out some blood - his throath has knit back enough that he can talk, even if his voice is still little more than a rasp.

"You put a lot of stock in the idea that I will care about letting this fucker keep his pitiful life."

"Hey!"

The man laughs again, before suddenly turning deadly serious.

"Do it. Kill him. Maybe bite him, why not? The cuffs will drain the life out of you, too. Your body willl be alive, but the rest of you will be dead. You'd be a walking corpse, capable only of obeying the orders of the one who created you. Who just happens to be me." 

"That's impossible," Eren states, matter-of-fact.

The man turns to Runt.

"You've seen the etchings, your highness."

"Yeah, it's...what he says...makes sense," Runt says, his voice filled with dread.

"And then I'll string you both somewhere in the forest where your clans can find you, and you'll gladly accuse yourself of murdering the Prince right in front of the entire Royal Family. We'll see how they react." He turns his eyes on Runt. "Or what will the Spider clan do when one of their few male heirs is mauled by a Fox, at that."

Eren feels a knot of horror forming in his stomach. 

"War," Runt yells, echoing his own thoughts. "You want to start a war!"

"Who, me? Absolutely not! In fact, it's in everybody's best interest to avoid such a terrible, terrible scenario. All I want is for the two of you to behave and be nice to me."

"Be...nice?" Runt's voice is breaking in absolute disbelief. "You cannot be serious. What do you want from us?"

"For starters," the man says, lifting the chain he's still carrying, the nails glistening in the little light, "Your Highness, please, if you would be so kind as to _scream_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a horrible person.
> 
> And now we're stuck with the sucky title. Oh well.
> 
> I wub comments forever.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reiterating the warnings. This is **really frickin' violent**. Specific warnings for this chapter include blood, gore, whipping, choking, stabbing, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

Runt is still where the man left him, his face in the ground. He looks like he's passed out.

He was still awake when the man moved to Eren. Eren knows this because he's heard him sob "Spider, Spider" out. 

He was so noisy all through the whole thing. 

Eren made a point of keeping a stiff upper lip for both of them. He didn't make a sound, not as the man dug his nailed chain in his back, not as he spat at them, laughed at them, kicked them, not as he went out, leaving the door open, making sure to let them know running away would be useless, not as he brought inside a jug of water and a couple bowls of suspicious broth with a weak joke about "royalty-worthy hospitality", not as he finally, finally left them alone in their cell, locking the door behind himself.

All through that, instead, Runt complained - little moans and sobs and calling for his mum, even. Only after all that his whines died off into nothing, while a stubbornly silent Eren just lied there, a bit indecisive about this whole "passing away from the pain" thing.

Eren _wants_ to despise Runt for the poor show he made of himself - it's what he's been taught should be the correct attitude for a warrior - but he's having a hard time conjuring the appropriate amount of snide. He's not used to being proud and arrogant, if he's honest - after all, it's not like the Spider clan is a warrior clan lately as much as a "farmers who occasionally haunt springs and hunt" clan. 

_Yeah, and whose fault is that?_ a stubborn voice asks him.

Eren considers Runt again. His back is still bleeding (probably should take off his top, before the blood dries and glues the cloth to the open wounds), and he looks so...broken, his composure entirely gone.

Was it the first time the Prince got a thrashing like that? It was borderline unbearable for _Eren_ , who's quite acquainted with violence. He really can't expect Runt to live up to his standards.

He moves closer.

"Hey, Runt," he mutters softly.

Runt turns his head _immediately_ , with that fast movement, and Eren is taken aback.

"You were awake?"

Runt nods. His eyes are still filled with tears.

"Can I...see?" Eren asks, at length. "Your wounds, I mean."

Runt rises an eyebrow.

"My dad's a doctor. He's training me," Eren explains helpfully. "I will have to take off your shirt. Can you sit up?"

Runt nods. He moves slowly, experimentally, while Eren goes to grab the jug of water and Runt's overcoat.

He undoes the belt, but Eren gestures he's taking the top off himself, hooking his fingers in the cloth next to Runt's neck. Runt is docile, obviously exhausted by pain, and the shirt is off without much difficulty.

Eren now _has_ to look at Runt's back, something, he realizes, he's been avoiding doing.

The wounds are _horrible_. Huge gashes and cuts, raw meat exposed in some areas, in some others chunks of flesh are missing. The ones on himself are probably just as bad, Eren thinks, but his have already stopped bleeding, and, well...for Eren it has always been so much worse to observe other people's pain than to undergo pain himself. Even if the other people is a smug little Fox princeling.

He swallows.

"I'll, I'll clean this, alright? I just have some water, but once it's properly clean and bandaged it will be better, I promise."

Runt doesn't answer, just sighs.

"I will have to rip your nice coat to make bandages."

Runt nods.

"Also, I, uhm...do you have something like, needle and thread? I will need to patch you up a lil' bit. I have some cleaning salve on myself, but..."

"Inside the coat," Runt says, his voice still a bit raw with all the screaming he's done.

Hearing him speak after so much silence is jarring. Eren realized he's been missing his voice, a little - after three days in which his sole conversation has been with the asshole who kidnapped him with unclear intentions (and who has an _awful_ sense of humor), Runt's company has been a ray of sunshine, Fox or not.

Even with the echo of his cries of pain still ringing, it's refreshing to hear him talk.

He finds everything he needs and gets to work. 

Runt is silent through the process, making only little whines of pain when the needle sinks in.

Eren doesn't like him so silent, but he doesn't know what to say. 

He rips the bandages from the overcoat and starts wrapping his back. It requires making a movement that is almost like hugging Runt, and Eren wonders at how tiny he really is under the clothes - he's maybe a little taller than Eren, he thinks, but Eren's torso is wider across than his. Do the Foxes not feed their Princes? If all the food in the Capital is as good as the little dumplings Runt was carrying on himself, at his place Eren would be so fat that he couldn't move.

Eren tightens a coil a little bit too much and Runt moans in pain, very softly.

"Does it hurt?"

"No, it's alright. The tighter the better to stop the bleeding, right?"

"Still. Warn me if it cuts out your breathing, Runt."

"What did you call me?"

"Runt. I ain't gonna stop so don't ask."

"No. I like it."

That's unexpected, the precious little princeling having a sense of humor about himself. Despite everything, Eren feels himself close to a smile.

"You do admit to being the runt of the litter, then?"

"Exactly because I'm no runt, I can take your nickname in stride, Spider."

That's a little bit more in line with what Eren expects of a Fox Prince. He smiles anyway.

"Sure, whatever you say. Done! Don't move around too much, now, or the wounds will reopen."

"Thank you," Runt says, kindly. He turns around slowly, with his whole body, until they're both sitting cross-legged in front of one another, their knees brushing. "Can I...Can I do the same for you?"

Eren shrugs. 

"My wounds are probably already halfway closed."

"Really? I heard Spiders were borderline indestructible, but..."

"Yeah."

"Can I still help?" He turns his head to the side. "I just...I feel so useless. And guilty."

"Guilty?" Eren almost laughs. "For what?"

Runt is silent for a long moment.

"I hurt you," he says at the end, in a tiny voice, avoiding Eren's eyes and collecting his knees against his chest, slowly, obviously still in pain.

Eren feels disoriented for a moment before remembering.

"What, you mean the...but you didn't know!"

"He deliberately put himself in harm's way. I should've guessed something was off."

"Eh, I would've done the same. Except in my case it would've been so much worse because I would have poisoned him with the Thousand Curses, and that would've been a right piece of shit for you."

Runt blinks.

"You know how to do the Thousand Curses? I thought it was a legend!"

Eren smiles mysteriously.

"Who knows."

"Pfff, as if."

"And anyway it was just a tiny tiny scratch. Look!" Eren exposes his neck. "There isn't even a mark left!"

"There _is_ a mark," Runt says, ever-so-delicately pressing the tip of a finger where the skin is still tender - but there's a little smile on his face, now. "But it's vanishing. You heal so quickly, it's incredible!"

Eren feels a wave of pride wash over him.

"See? You don't have to worry about anything. I can handle it!"

Runt smiles back for a moment and then sighs and restarts looking at the ground with a wistful gaze, and Eren finds he doesn't like seeing him so melancholic.

"Hey, Runt..."

"Mh?"

"What were you doing around those parts?"

"I was following my uncle on an peace mission. We were supposed to meet members of the Spider clan."

"So they know you're around here? They're coming, then!"

Runt makes a sad, sad face.

"Maybe. This isn't their territory. I don't know if they'll be able to find us without my power."

"Oh."

Eren rakes his brain, searching for something to break the suddenly heavy silence.

"You're negotiating a new treaty? With us?" he says in the end.

Runt nods.

"We're trying to...fix some things, lately."

"Fix," Eren snorts. "There's little left to fix, usurper."

"Usurper? We brought order and peace, you're the ones who..." Runt shakes his head, his nostrils flaring. "This is an useless conversation."

Eren is silent for a long moment.

"Arguing is something to do. I was going crazy being alone here for three days," he finally admits. "And that crazy asshole...I don't want to...talk about him." 

Runt smiles, a bit sad still, but kind.

"Yeah, but it's also kind of pointless. Better to discuss our options, isn't it?" Runt offers him a hand. "Let's- let's draw up a truce. Yeah. Until we get out of here."

Eren eyes his hand warily for a moment, but in the end, Runt is right - joining forces is the best course of action.

"Until we get out of here," he says, shaking the offered hand.

"Good. So, do you want to do some experiments?"

"Experiments?"

Runt uncovers a pale arm and grabs Eren's correspondent one to put next to it. 

"Scratch my arm."

"Oooh, I get it. But you'd better be the one who does the scratching."

Runt shrugs and pulls out one of his long nails, traces a long scratch on his own arm.

His skin remains intact, knitting itself right back up as soon as his nail passes, but on Eren's arm a correspondent red welt appears.

"So even if I try to harm myself..." Runt chews on his lip. "Don't take this personally, uh." 

He grabs Eren's arm and scratches it. The scratch, this time, acts like a proper normal scratch, appearing on Eren's skin where Runt is tracing it.

"We can't hurt ourselves, but we can hurt each other."

Eren licks his lips.

"He's gone a really long fucking way to try and incapacitate us. Could've just knocked us out and tied us up if he wanted to rough us up a lil'. I mean, what's his huge overarching plan? He must have a huge overarching plan."

Runt's brows furrow.

"I think he's just crazy."

"Yeah, I kinda figured when he pulled out the chain with nails in it."

"No, I mean...he doesn't just want to _rough us up a lil'_. There might be somebody above him who has a plan, but he himself...he acts like...He doesn't seem to care about starting a war, about bringing the country on the brink of destruction again - he only cares about dangling the possibility over our heads, so something huge is at stake for both of us and we won't rebel. And before, when he...he wasn't torturing information out of us, he didn't mention a ransom...Do you understand?"

"...not really."

"He's..." Runt seems to debate something with himself before shaking his head. "It's not important."

"Runt..."

"It's just a thought, it's not important. Let's try to eat and sleep a little."

"But..."

" _Please_ , Spider. Let's not talk about this anymore."

Eren is still curious, but lets it drop. They eat in silence, establish the corner closest to the door as the bathroom (Runt points out that maybe the smell will disturb the man enough he'll give them bathroom passes), and then they pick opposite corners of the cell to sleep into.

 ~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

_Crazy_ might have been too delicate a word for what this man is.

Eren had an auntie who was a little crazy. Had fallen in love with a human, got into making out with him, sorta forgot humans can't breath underwater, never quite got over it, that sorta crazy. She was normal most of the time, if sad, and she would pass the nights sighing at the stars, up from the quiet pond where her beau drowned. But sometimes if she met a nice young man she would call him by his name and try to drag him back to the pond to drown him, because apparently doing it a second time would undo the first.

Humans kept carefully away from her pond, but all the family had to keep an eye on her anyway, of course, so Eren had seen her during her episodes, could remember the haunted look in her eyes, the way she would call the man's name, over and over, until the word lost all meaning.

And yet, there was something in her madness that was almost...sweet. Kind.

This man has nothing kind in him. 

He's strangling Runt using a leather leash. Runt's eyes are bulging out, tears rolling down his cheeks, his tongue is dangling out of his mouth, his face is going blue, and under normal circumstances Eren would be able to break the weak rope that is tying him easily, but the cuffs are still doing their job and all he can do is look.

"Look at how cute you look," the man comments. "Even your friend thinks you do, isn't it, uhm? Tell him how cute he looks, Spider."

"Let him go, you're killing him!"

"Killing? Oh, no, I would never kill either of you. Not this early."

He drags Runt up to Eren's chair, pushes his face between his legs.

Runt's eyes have rolled in the back of his head. He grabs the trousers on Eren's thighs, probably on reflex, and holds onto them for dear life.

"Tell him how cute he is," the man orders. "He won't believe it if I say it myself."

"He's cute, he's fucking cute, now let him the fuck go!" Eren yells, desperation in his voice.

The man laughs and unclasps something on the leash, fumbles with it, even, and Runt's face is moving towards black when he finally manages to open it.

Runt's head falls forward, between Eren's legs. Eren hears him dry-heave before he restarts to breath properly, big gulps of air. The hold on his legs becomes lighter.

"Hey..."

He coughs, obviously still unable to answer, but he manages one little broken look at Eren before the man grabs him by the hair and pulls him back.

A knife glistens in the man's other hand.

"Come on. Let's show your friends how much I'm not going to kill you." 

He sinks his knife in Runt's shoulder and Runt's scream is silent, because he still hasn't caught his breath, but Eren hears it anyway.

"See. Like this it won't kill him. Also like this-" the knife sinks again, in his other shoulder, then lower, in his arm, then again and again, until Runt's clothes are soaked in blood.

"Please stop. Please, please, please, stop..." Eren starts chanting, but the man can't hear him.

Runt passes out, at a point. The man stabs him a couple more times, muttering something about him being "lazy".

"Leave him alone, can't you see he's fainted?"

"Yeah, you're right. He doesn't have a lot of stamina, does he?" 

The man grabs him and dumps Runt unceremoniously back in his cell, leaving a long stripe of blood behind.

He looks at Eren, now, with a smile on his face, rubbing his hands against each other with almost childish glee. 

"Oh, well. That leaves the two of us."

Eren is almost relieved when he hears that. As long as Runt doesn't die on him, as long as...

The man grabs the knife again and starts making his way towards Eren.

Eren can feel his heart beating in his own chest, his whole body going rigid - but he can handle it. He can handle it. He can. As long as him and Runt are both alive at the end of the day, it's going to be alright.

 ~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

Eren is still conscious when the man dumps him in the cell. Thought it seems like he doesn't look like it, judging by Runt's reaction.

"Spider! Did you kill him? You bastard, did you kill him?"

The man ignores him, just slams the door behind himself and locks him. He's exhausted after a harsh day of torturing kids, it seems.

"Runt..."

"Spider, oh fuck! Don't talk!"

"Runt."

"Don't talk, I said! There's still some water left, I can bandage your..."

"Don't bother."

"But..."

"I said - don't bother." 

Runt stills and goes quiet at Eren's authoritative tone.

"I wanted to ask. Before...yesterday. When you said it wasn't important. You meant to say...that he doesn't have an overarching plan. That he doesn't want us for any particular reason. He just wants...pets."

In the silence, Eren hears water dripping. He didn't hear it before, the days he was alone. Then, he realizes it's blood from Runt's arm - the bandages he put on somehow have soaked through.

"I would've said," Runt says, at length, "that he took us as toys. But the sense is the same, I imagine."

Eren snorts.

"Toys is better. Nobody I know would be this cruel to their pets."

Drip drip drip, drip drip drip.

" _Please_ , let me see to your wounds."

"Let me attend to you first. Your arm is dripping. A dizzy Runt won't help nobody."

"Alright, but then you _will_ explain to me how to do all this, alright? I know I will never be as good as you, but...I have to know how it's done, right? So that even if you're passed out..."

"I will."

He hears Runt rummage through their few possessions, and instructs him on how to mix the salve with water and how to clean and prepare everything. Runt whines as he undoes the bandages on his arm, but remains stoically silent as Eren quickly patches his arm up.

Then, before he's even bandaged him, Runt is making more makeshift bandages and moving towards him.

"Oh, _shit_ ," he mutters under his breath as he takes in the extent of damage on Eren.

Eren chuckles.

"You'd be a fucking awful doctor, Runt. You're supposed to reassure the patient."

Runt makes a noise that is half sob and half laughter, but he dries his eyes and nods.

"Clean everything with the mixture. About the wounds, I'll tell you which ones need stitching," Eren explains. "Most will close either way as long as you bandage them tight. Understood?"

Runt nods again, focused now, and quietly moves on patching Eren up. He's quick on the uptake, and soon it ends up being less Eren instructing him and more Runt silently looking at him and asking for approval about what he's doing and Eren nodding.

But Eren doesn't like the silence. It makes everything go blurry, unfocused - it leaves all the space available for the pain - so he breaks it.

"Hey, Runt."

"Hm?"

"Talk to me."

Runt seems taken aback and doesn't raise his eyes from his work, but his tone is kind when he answers.

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. Talk to me about the Capital."

"The Capital? What about it?"

"How's the food?"

Runt snorts.

"Food's good."

"You don't look like the food is good. You so thin. Baby runt princeling."

Runt puffs.

"I work hard to maintain this shape, you know! I'm..."

"...a baby princeling. Come on, tell me how is life in the Capital for a baby princeling. How many carriages do you have? Are the girls pretty?"

"I thought you would be the kind to despise such talk."

Eren shrughs, to the best of his ability. "I'm just curious. If things went they way they should have, maybe I would've been the Prince myself, isn't it? I want to know how my life should have been like."

Runt is silent for a second, and Eren is beginning to think he actually offended him (which, for once, wasn't his intention) - but then, he starts talking, gently, quietly, about nothing and everything.

He doesn't stop when he's done fixing the bandages, either, he lies down next to Eren and keeps on talking - places, people, duties, pleasures, names Eren doesn't recognize, unfamiliar images of luxury, swirling in his head.

Those things could've been mine, Eren thinks, but there's no bitterness in the thought, only something akin to a sweet awe.

Eren falls asleep that evening to the quiet drone of Runt's voice, with the images of the beautiful gardens surrounding the Palace filling his dreams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Most warnings still apply. Specific ones for this chapter are stabbing, whipping, and bones breaking.

"I've been so disrespectful, Your Highness, treating you as any other Spider peasant," the man says, as he lets the whip fall on Runt's back again. 

Runt is crying, but he's controlling himself, fixing his eyes on the ground, leaning over his hands tied to his front.

"Please, it's enough, please!" Eren begs for what it feels like the one hundredth time.

The man ignores him.

"Almost ruined the Prince's pretty body! Oh, a Prince is delicate." 

The whip falls without apparent effort, but when it bounces up it draws blood from Runt's back.

"Isn't it true that Spiders can regrow legs? Never heard of a Fox regrowing legs. Won't make the same mistake again, no no. Going to be tender with the sweet little Prince."

"Can't you see how much blood he's losing?" 

Droplets spray on the roof, on the wall behind the man. The markings add up, in long red arcs.

"You're killing him!"

"But, he's not screaming! He's toughened up. I will have to earn your screams, now, isn't it, Your Highness? Better. Much more fun."

He kicks on Runt's back and pushes him down, with his boot on his ruined back.

Runt is so surprised he does, indeed, scream, and the man makes an approving sound and adjusts his trousers.

He looks at Eren.

"Let's see, what next, what next..."

He walks to him, replaces the whip on the side table and leans over the other table where Eren is tied, smiling genially.

"Your eyes," the man says, wistfully looking at Eren, caressing his cheek. "They're so pretty. I wanna take them and put them in a bottle."

"Fuck you!" Eren yells. 

"It really is a dilemma. On one hand, I could do it once a day and you'll grow them back - I could start a collection! Rows and rows of bottles with pretty Spider eyes. But on the other hand, I really want you to _see_. It's so much funnier if you can see!" 

He grabs a hammer from the side table, contemplates it. Runt makes a little scared noise. 

"You know, when _she_ said I will be taking two things, I thought, wouldn't two be too many? With one, it's so much more...intimate."

The man smiles and starts walking towards Runt. The hammer is so heavy it makes his gait tilt.

"But now that I have the two of you here, I gotta say...with two, it's so much more fun. So, so many possibilities, sometimes I don't know what to do! Like a child in a candy store. You're so much company, too! I hear you chat, sometimes, down in your cell..." 

He grabs Runt's hair and forces his head up. 

"Do you talk about me, uhu? Is this what you do? Talk about me behind my back? Come up with plans to hurt me, don't you? I know. You think I don't know, but I do."

Suddenly, Runt's face animates, and he looks up at the man, his eyes all defiance. 

"Actually, we never talk about vermin like _you_."

The man goes rigid with anger. He pulls Runt up by the hair in a way that has to hurt.

"You little fucking _animal_. That's what you are. You call yourself a Prince and you put on nice clothes and a pretty face, but that's what you are, isn't it? A little stupid animal."

Runt spits in his face.

The man howls like he's in pain and lifts the hammer over his head, and for a moment, Eren is sure those are Runt's last moments, and would like to be able to say something - something nice, like, _hey, you weren't all that bad for a Fox_ \- but it all happens so quickly, too quickly, and all he can do is make a stupid surprised noise.

Runt shuts his eyes and prepares - he's sure, too.

But the man stops halfway. His body starts shaking, and it takes a long moment for both Eren and Runt to realize he's - _laughing_ , silently guffawing like Runt just told the funniest joke.

Eren and the Prince share a surprised look.

"Ooooh, you're sneaky. Sneaky little Fox," the man says, wagging his finger. "You got me there, you almost got me there! But I gotcha, instead."

He turns towards Eren.

"He wants to abandon you to your destiny. Get me to bash his head in with a hammer, and there, all done."

Eren feels something really dark and heavy hit him in the stomach.

Runt...he can't possibly...if he dies...

"But, sweetheart," the man bends down to Runt again, "the moment you die, he'll be a puppet in my hands, haven't you considered this?"

Eren is expecting Runt to deny, in some shape or form, because what the man is saying is a crock of shit and Runt can't possibly be willing to...

But what Runt says instead is: "I've checked the markings. It works like that only if it's him hurting me." He turns to Eren, now, his eyes filling with tears. "Please understand that I don't...If I just...die, you'd be free."

"No. No no no no."

"You're stronger! You could..."

"No, this is bullshit, do you hear me? This is fucking bullshit."

"Shush, you," the man gestures casually towards Eren with the hammer before turning back to Runt. "You thought of everything, didn't you? Sneaky little Fox. But not sneaky enough for me. No, not sneaky enough for me. And now I'll show you what happens when you try to fuck with me, you stupid animal."

He leaves Runt and walks back towards Eren.

Runt's eyes widen and he falls forward, trying to push himself up on his tied hands.

"No. No no, leave him alone, this is my fault, leave him alone!"

"See," the man says to Eren, conversational, as he slowly circles the table he's tied to, so that he can keep an eye on Runt at the same time. "If I really was worried about you two talking behind my back, I could have easily made you two cells. But, I'm smart." The man presses a finger to his forehead. "I figured, the closer you two get, the better it is for me! And I was right."

He bends close to Eren's face, still looking at Runt. 

"This is why I'm leaving you your eyes. When you can _see_...the way you call for each other, the way you look...Have you noticed? You don't beg for yourself, but for the Fox, oh, you sing like a little canary! And the Prince is all snooty with me, but the moment I touch you he's suddenly sweeter than a drunken whore..." He cups his ear with his hand, whispers to Eren like he's sharing a secret. "Like this, Spider, can you hear him, pleading softly for you?" 

"No, please, I'm sorry, I won't try anything like this again, leave him out of it, leave him-"

Suddenly, the man stands and lets the hammer fall on Eren's leg. There's a crunching sound, and a pain so intense that Eren is temporarily blind, and deaf - he doesn't even hear himself scream.

When he comes to, the first thing he hears is Runt's begging.

He turns towards Runt, tries to smile at him weakly.

The man grabs his poor leg and _twists_ , and Eren yells and his vision fills with white spots again.

When he can see again, Runt has turned his head to the side - Eren is alright with this, but the man isn't.

He stalks towards him and forces him to turn back towards Eren by grabbing his jaw and neck.

"No, no, no, you did this, right? This is _your fault_. You did this. Look at what you've done to your friend."

Eren shakes his head, trying to tell Runt he doesn't blame him at all, but Runt is panicking, his eyes wide and his nostrils flared, and it's impossible the message will get across.

"If you turn your face away again, or close your eyes, I'll pull his eyes out. I'll do it. Do you understand?"

Runt nods, his eyes desperately peeled on Eren.

"Good. Now, _watch_."

The man stands, leaving red streaks on Runt's cheeks and neck.

Eren turns his face to the ceiling and keeps it there.

 ~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~  

They don't talk as they dress each other's wounds. It's not needed, so they don't do it, silence setting heavy between them like a fog.

Eren marvels at how quickly something like this, too, can become routine - the patching each other up, the soft-silent touch of Runt's long fingers, the feeling of his skin under Eren's own hands, of his bony arms, his thin waist. It's a weird sort of intimacy, something weak and trembling, almost non-existent compared with the violent physical sensations of the day - but there nonetheless.

Eren's legs hurt and burn. He refuses to examine them in too much detail, but he can see bone protruding from one, and the angle his other foot is at is - if they heal like this, they will need to be broken and then re-set. And that would be a right pain.

"...you need to help me set my legs," he says, then. "Before they heal wrong. I'll tell you how."

Runt nods, with a determined expression on his face that, in another completely different circumstance that isn't as shitty as this one, could be called cute.

Eren quickly explains the procedure, and Runt goes even paler as he listens, but his expression doesn't waver. He prepares everything, methodical, according to instructions - even finds suitable splints.

The pain of having his legs moved is almost unbearable, but Eren grits his teeth.

"Hey, watch out for my dick!" he says when Runt puts a foot on his crotch.

Runt blushes as he adjusts his position, because he's the type who blushes at the mention of dicks. 

Well, fuck the circumstance, he's cute.

"Is this alright?"

"Yeah. Hey, Runt."

"Yes?"

"I will scream. Don't feel bad. Be merciless, alright?"

"A-alright. On count of three. One, two..."

He starts pulling then, and Eren yells - but it's done quickly, and when the buzzing of pain is passed Runt is already down, setting the splints, and the pain is the burn of traction - still terrible, but good pain, healing pain.

"Is this right?"

Eren looks down and nods.

"As far as I can tell," he answers, still winded. "But you son of a dog went for it before the three!"

Runt smiles weakly.

"You said to be merciless."

Eren laughs.

"Asshole. Now, the other one!"

It doesn't take long. 

"Are you sure it's done right?"

Eren pulls himself up to sit against the wall and examines the splints, still panting.

"A more than decent job, all things considered."

Runt smiles for a moment, but then his expression gets sad again. 

He goes to grab the food bowls the man brought and sets them both next to Eren, then pulls his knees against his chest, hugs his legs.

Eren grabs one of the bowls.

"Let's see...wow, this looks like barf." 

He shrugs and starts digging into the bowl with all the enthusiasm he can muster anyway. It has been a long day, and he's hungry.

It takes a second before he realizes Runt hasn't picked the other bowl. 

"You not eating? Come on, I know it looks bad but this is hardly the time to play spoiled princeling." 

Runt hides his face behind his folded arms.

"You can have my food."

"Nah. We don't get enough food for all the healing we have to do, neither of us can afford to jump meals." 

No answer.

"Plus, lookit those thin arms. Runt. How can you strike terror in the hearts of the enemies of the Imperial Family with those sad little sticks?" 

Runt doesn't react.

Eren pokes at Runt's arm. 

"Is this about today? About that bullshit with killing yourself for my sake?"

"...It wasn't bullshit," Runt mutters.

"Yes it was."

No answer.

"I am not famous for my patience, you know. So either you come out and tell me what the fuck is wrong with you today, or I will just straight up kick your ass, broken legs or not."

"...Don't get angry."

"I do whatever the fuck I want. You're being stupid, and I get angry at stupid people."

"I'm not stupid!" Runt says, pulling his face up.

"Then, what the fuck are you? Enlighten me."

Runt sighs.

"I just thought...You can heal yourself, while I...I will die here, so...what's the point of fighting it?"

"This is such a crock of shit. Do you fucking expect me to just...be alright with you giving up on life like that?"

"It's not like I need your permission," Runt says, pulling his nose in the air.

"Yeah, you kinda fucking do because if you try something like that again I will personally summon you back from the dead to _kick your ass_. We're both animals covered in dirt in this shithole, and you ain't bigger than me, Runt, so don't pull that Prince bullshit on me now."

"Don't talk to me like that!"

"Oooh, I'm sorry that I expressed my opinion about not fucking wanting you to _die_ in a disrespectful manner!"

Runt unfurls himself and starts yelling, suddenly, small tears in his eyes. 

"I know what I have to do! I know what's the best course of action!"

"The best course of action is to survive, idiot!"

"Yeah, survive another day to get tortured the next?" He's definitely crying, now. "You don't understand, you're strong and you take so much damage - but I'm a fucking coward, and I'm weak, and one of these days _he_ is going to gut me open like a fish and you won't be able to put me back together and _he_ will get off on watching you try, so what's the point?"

"The point is that I'm not fucking dying here and neither are you!" 

"How can you be so sure of that? How can you know anything?"

"Because I fucking _refuse_ to die here! Why are you so sure you _are_?"

Runt switches to talking slowly and quietly, like he's addressing an insane person - but at the same time, there's a glint in his eyes that wasn't there before.

"Spider, we're very realistically going to die here. This isn't something that requires explanation."

"Well of course we are going to die, if we give up! But as long as we fight, we haven't lost. As long as we fight, there's hope."

Runt shakes his head.

"We just had to patch each other back up with thread and needle, and you talk to me of hope...You're crazy."

Eren shrugs, his anger slowly deflating.

"Think what you want. It's more crazy to give up, to me."

Runt dries his tears with his arm and sniffles, chews on his lip.

"Stupid little princeling," Eren mutters. "Half your clan is out there combing the swamp for you, probably, and you just want to let yourself _die_? What is your family going to do without their prince?" 

Runt snorts. 

"Oh, I have plenty of gifted cousins and youthful uncles. It's probably one of them who put me in here, in fact."

Eren blinks.

"What?"

Runt shrugs, but he's more animated, now - his eyes narrow.

"He mentioned a 'she', and he knows things...Somebody who knows all the secrets of the Fox clan instructed him, and the only people who know so much are Foxes themselves - and the Royal Family are the only ones who would know I was coming on this trip." 

"You mean..."

"This is on commission. He's going to kill us and somebody is going to find our corpses and start a war, sooner or later. The chance to torture us is his reward."

Eren is taken aback for a moment.

"Your family is _fucked up_."

Runt snorts.

"You can say that."

"Well, all the more reason to not give up! Survive to kick their asses!"

Runt makes a sound that it could be a giggle, if it wasn't so sad.

"I can't believe you!" 

Then, he turns his head to the side, melancholic. "Maybe it's...good that they got rid of me. I'm weak, and..."

"No, fuck that noise," Eren says, convinced. "Would you really let anybody who's willing to order their own family tortured to death have the throne instead of you?"

"At least they're showing drive and will. The only thing I have of a Prince is that I look pretty in the right light."

"Well, and what about the war? You said it yourself, they're trying to start a war!"

Runt chews on his lip.

"I can only hope my uncle will be smart enough."

"Or you could survive and find out who did this to you and exact bloody revenge."

"As if. I'm too much of a bleeding heart for that."

"Well, I'm not a bleeding heart at all. I could exact bloody revenge for you. Just point me towards them and I'll spit venom at them until their faces fall off."

Runt flat out laughs at this, his gloomy mood sliding off a little.

"You can do that even if I'm dead."

"So you have everything sorted out, don't you? You die and everybody is happy," Eren says, getting even angrier.

Runt shrugs.

"More or less, yeah."

"And what about me, huh?"

Runt blinks.

"What about you?"

"We have more chances if we join forces, you said it yourself!"

"You'll have the best chances without dead weight."

"Really? You seriously think they didn't consider the possibility that you could die? That there isn't a failsafe? The bindings are still doing a number on my strenght, for starters. Don't you remember I had been here for three days already when you came in? I'm in no more condition to escape now that I was then."

"I thought about this, but you're the one who has more chances to survive long enough to..."

"Survive! How the fuck will I survive if you die on me?" 

Runt's eyes widen in surprise.

Eren feels the tips of his ears go red, but he won't it let get to him.

"What am I supposed to do, just...keep going, day in and day out, until he grows tired and kills me? Sure, I could grit my teeth and scrap by until I get my revenge, maybe, but...do you seriously think I'd have it in myself to...Without you...your company, I guess...I'm not sure I would have made it this far. If you died on me, I would feel like there's no more hope for real," he ends up saying, quickly, turning his face away.

Runt's eyes are huge, now, and he lets out a long surprised exhale.

"Spider..."

Eren _refuses_ to get shy, and that's final. He looks straight into Runt's eyes.

"We will get out of this. Together. I promise."

"You..." Eren hears Runt's voice break, ever so slightly. He can tell he's indecisive about what to say for a very long time. 

"You...promise?" he ends up asking, in a small voice.

"Of course. You promise me too. No more of that bullshit."

"Spider..."

"Promise!" Eren grabs his hand. "We'll fight to live. Together."

Runt looks at him, straight in his eyes, for a long moment, like he's looking for something. Then, suddenly, his face opens in another smile, sad, but with a softer edge that wasn't there before.

"You know what? Yes. I promise. I promise I'll do my best."

"Good." Eren answers. "Now, talk to me more about your fucked up family."

Runt sniffles.

"I don't know if I feel like it, right now," he says with a little sigh. "But _you_ could talk." 

He moves to sit with his back against the wall, next to Eren, and grabs a bowl. 

"I've never talked to a Spider. I have no idea what you do all day, aside from hanging in ponds and being an unerring beacon of hope for idiots everywhere." 

He doesn't say "by the way, I'm sorry", but Eren is fluent in stubborn himself, so he hears it anyway.

"Alright, what do you want to know?"

Runt leans against him. 

"Mmmh, is it true that you sleep underwater?"

"Yes, sometimes. It's nice in the summer, fresh. Also, it's good protection against mosquito bites."

"I've never been bitten by a mosquito."

"Wait, really? That's impossible!"

 ~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

Runt falls asleep first, that night.

Eren finds himself listening to his labored breathing, pondering how can somebody go a whole childhood without being bitten by a mosquito, or making a mud cake, or catching fireflies - all things Runt has apparently never done.

He dreams, that night, of taking Runt to the edges of the swamp, where the big green prairie starts, to catch fireflies. He dreams also of other stuff, but this is the part he cares to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like there are like a ton of mistakes here but like I'm so frigging tired but I don't want to go two days without an update. Goodnight, then.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THE OP OF THE PROMPT DID FANART! I don't know if they're okay with me linking to their fanart posting place so I'll just post the link to the [post on the kink meme](http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/13546.html?thread=9459178#cmt9459178). It's cute and it will give you a good idea of how Jean looks in this fic and yeah. It's so cute. I'm happy.
> 
> Aside from that, warnings for this part include gore, grotesque violence, rape (even if not graphically described), self-deprecation with annexed deprecative language and you know what, this chapter is just. Painful. If you people want to come back to this fic when it moves on from this part and focuses on Jean and Eren's friendship I will understand. I'll write it in the chapter's summary.

If it was revenge, Eren could take it. He could shrug it off. He could deem it well-deserved, even - he knows he's not a good guy, especially from the point of view of a human - nobody in his clan is. If the man said that Eren killed a member of his family, for example - granted, the people Eren's clan kills mostly deserve it entirely in Eren's opinion, but it would be _something_ , and it would make it all easier to bear, knowing that in some twisted way, he might have deserved it. 

But that would mean that Runt, too, did something to deserve it, and Runt obviously did nothing wrong (seriously, all it takes is one look at his face to know he's as innocent as they come), aside maybe from being born a Prince and a Fox, and Eren doesn't feel like faulting him for that anymore. So this kind of thing must happen to innocent people too, people who have done nothing to deserve this.

This is a world in which sometimes a crazy person kidnaps a kid and plants nails in his body just...because. 

Eren will never wrap his head around this.

Granted, it's probably the blood loss partially clouding his ability to think.

"Spider...oh, Spider..." 

Runt has been choked and whipped again - but he still is willing to cry for him in a way that gives Eren the chills.

He wishes he would just pass out, so he could stop worrying about him getting crazy ideas about saving him. Eren can deal with everything on his own, and that's a fucking lie, but Runt passing out would be a relief either way.

The nails are across Eren's muscles, in his arms and legs, hands and feet, along his sides and hips, wherever the meat is thick enough to allow one to be planted firmly. They're long iron nails, not too thick, but their bite is still secure in the wood of the table under Eren. There are so many, and for every nail a wound that wants healing, over and over, for so many times, now. The man planted them in, and as soon as Eren stopped bleeding, he came back and pulled out one of them, making his muscles tense in reaction to pain, his body arch, and all his wounds reopen. Again, and again, and again.

Eren lost count of how many times it happened. But he's beginning to think it was once too many.

His healing power is strong, amazing - but it's still tapping on Eren's stamina, and Eren's stamina is still dependent on his physical well-being, and he had no respite for the whole day, and he's been calculating in his head for a while how much blood can somebody lose before dying, except he can't really keep a good count when he's about to pass out from exhaustion and pain, when he can feel his healing slowing down to the point of stopping already.

He doesn't know how much blood he's lost, how many nails, for how many times the man came back to hurt him, he doesn't know why he's doing this, if there's even a reason for this all to happen - the only thing he knows is that for the first time in his life, he's facing the idea that he might die soon - not just _soon_ , but right here and right now and like _this_ \- and it's _terrifying_. 

The man pulls out another nail.

Eren yells and arches up, and then yells again at the pain of the wounds, and he's passing out, he can feel his blood leaving him, his life leaving him, and his body trying and failing to knit back together in time to keep it in - the healing power, he thinks frantically, it's over, it's being too slow, the blood loss is faster, it can't keep up, it's over, it's over...

"You're killing him," Runt begs. "Please, use me a little more instead, please..."

"Sorry, your highness. But you're too weak. The little Spider - oh, I might be overdoing it a little, but he's such a wonderful toy! Healing so fast - so stubborn, so strong..." 

"I'm not going to be much fun if I die," Eren manages to say, calming down a little when he realizes he's still alive for the moment.

The man laughs. 

"Of course! But you're replaceable, differently from the Prince. All I will have to do is find another little Spider...though the Prince would probably be heartbroken."

"No! No, please, don't kill him, don't kill him..."

Eren closes his eyes. Death is...still terrifying, but it's also the end of pain. If Eren was the type to give in...But death would mean the man kidnapping another Spider. 

It would mean leaving Runt alone.

It would mean letting _him_ win, and _fuck that noise_.

"Please, don't kill him," Runt begs again.

Eren opens his eyes to look at him. He's crying, sobbing, even, and there's real fear in his eyes. Can he tell Eren's healing ability isn't working anymore? He really hopes he can't, but he probably can. He's smart. 

"Oh, I don't _really_ want to - I've grown sort of attached." The man grabs a knife. "But everybody's hand slips, every once in a while."

He pushes the tip of the knife on Eren's sternum, sinks it in until it bleeds and Eren can feel the pressure. 

Eren meets his eyes, calm.

"Not scared still. You're so brave. Or maybe...are you about to start begging me for death?"

"You wish I made your life so easy, scum," Eren says between gritted teeth.

"What a great answer!" The man smiles, wide and crooked. He turns to Runt. "That's why you're always fawning all over him, isn't it? Such a strong spirit!"

"If you know that now," Runt says, "please allow him to recover. Please. Just give him a moment."

"Maybe I will!" He turns back towards Eren. "If he begs me to leave him be, I will. What do you say, Spider? Say 'please' and I'll let the little Prince take care of you. Come on. Say, 'please, pretty please, let me live', nice and sweet like your Spider mummy taught you".

"Spider...just say what he wants to hear, please..."

Eren meets the man's eyes again.

"Go fuck yourself," he says.

The man's smile widens.

"As expected of our brave Spider," he says, and sinks the knife down in Eren's belly. 

Runt screams in horror, but Eren can't even react - everything is so far away, numbed in a haze of horrible pain. 

He can just observe the man twist the knife inside his belly, opening it up. 

He's contemplating what he knows to be his own death. The wound is too big. He's not going to heal, unless the man gives him a moment of respite. And he will not. The man's next strike is going to kill him.

With incredible effort, Eren turns to the side and meets Runt's terrified eyes. He begs him, without words, to forgive him for failing him. They're not getting out of this together.

~~____________________________________________________________________________________________________~~

He wakes up to sobbing - but the moment he moves, it stops, and the only sound is Runt's quiet wheezing, the shuffling of cloth and dripping of water as he cleans and dresses Eren's wounds.

For a moment, he can only marvel at the fact he's still alive.

He opens his eyes and watches Runt as he works, how his face is still wet with tears and snot but he's trying so hard to look alright.

Runt smiles weakly when he sees he opened his eyes.

"Welcome back to the world of the living, Spider. I almost lost hope."

He's a catalog of bruises and wounds, Runt, almost as bad as Eren's. He favors one side when he moves, has been since day one - a cracked rib that keeps on being cracked over and over, probably. Would explain also why his breathing is so labored. He hasn't been moving his arm right since the other day - the man probably sliced nerve. His neck is still covered in horrible yellow-blue bruises. He has hastily patched up all of his wounds again already, like Eren taught him, and Eren can more or less trace back all of them to something the man did right under Eren's eyes, as he yelled him to stop, stop, stop please, except one thing. 

He is limping, a little, when he stands up to collect some more water. That...is new.

An flash comes up in Eren's mind, something he might have seen as he was wavering between life and death, earlier, but also so nightmarish that it might have been an hallucination caused by the blood loss - Runt's body, white and clean, his long willowy legs - why would he be naked, though, why would he...

He tries to sit up, but the pain is too much, and he ends up falling back on his straw bed.

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing?" Runt answers, but he's a bit surprised and nervous, like he's hiding something and wasn't expecting Eren to notice.

Like Eren has anything better to do right now than worry about him and feel like a piece of shit for not helping him.

"It's not nothing. It's not...what did he do? What did he do to you!"

Runt regains himself rather quickly, his hands trembling, but his expression stern. He avoids Eren's eyes as he bends down on his body.

"Spider. Don't scream, please. You bleed more when you agitate yourself."

He keeps himself busy by efficiently bandaging Eren's wounds. He's becoming better at it, he's a fast learner - he even managed to put his poor belly back together, with clumsy but sure stitches, while Eren was still passed out.

Eren doesn't insist. By now, he has started to recognize the silence that happens when Runt is pondering a good answer.

"He hurt you so much," Runt says, at length. "Your healing mechanism was starting to fail, I could tell. I was afraid he was going to...damage you to a point of no return. So I...He had been giving me looks. I live between corrupted nobles, I know those looks."

Eren starts feeling sick in a way that has nothing to do with the pain. 

"I thought..." Runt lets out a little sob, but fights valiantly to keep his composure. "You were already passed out at that point, so it wasn't hard to...distract him." 

Eren takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. This is a boy who gets all shy when he has to pee and makes Eren turn to face the wall. _Distract him_. He blushes when dicks are mentioned, for fuck's sake. _Distract him_. Innocent, he thought earlier. All it takes is a look at his face. _Distract him_.

"Runt..."

"It was nothing," Runt cuts him short, irritated. "He would have done it, sooner or later, so...I just...played along a little. We're taught how. Humans find us attractive, it's part of being a Fox, it's...we know it...tends to happen. I didn't...I tried to thrall him, I've been trying since the first day, but my power is too weak, so...maybe he was a little more...a little bit more...violent than what I was prepared for, but...it was the only thing I could think of to help you, and it worked, so it doesn't matter in the end."

"It...doesn't matter? Runt..."

"It's not like it's some kind of...horrible thing, alright?" he hastily interrupts Eren. "You go through much worse. I just had to...stare at the floor and..." he blanches, his eyes widening, then stops himself and turns his face to the side, violently fighting again to regain some composure, even blushing. "So you can go right ahead and despise the filthy Fox for taking the coward way out, I won't fault you," he adds stiffly. "I know that for a warrior what I did was probably disgusting. But I could tell you were dying, and I..." 

Eren moves to grab the closest part of Runt that he can reach - it turns out to be a knee, and he doesn't hold it, not really, just rests his hand on it. 

"...Spider?" Runt turns slowly towards him.

"You..." Eren puts his hand back on the floor to lean on it as he props himself up against the wall. "How could I despise you?"

"I...I..." Runt sniffles. "You're not...disgusted?"

"You saved my life."

Runt's eyes widen in surprise, before he starts to speak frantically.

"You shouldn't feel like you owe me anything, I didn't really...we can't know if you would have died, and I...You're always protecting me. I was just...repaying my debt. And I picked the... _easy_ way of doing it, anyway."

"You don't look like it was an easy thing to do."

"Oh, I'll get used to it fast enough," Runt says, his expression turning slightly bitter. "Isn't this what your people always say about Foxes? That we're all whor-"

"Don't," Eren stops him, leaning forward so quickly his stomach hurts and he has to pull back. "Don't say that, I- I owe my life to your good heart. You...you did something that is...The option of doing...this, what you did...to ease your pain was there from the first day - but you didn't. You preferred to let yourself be tortured to the brink of death."

"Because I...I felt like...like doing that would be giving up on the one thing that...I'd rather...it's silly. I was acting all precious and stupid, when it's just...it's just a matter of...I went and did it anyway, after all."

"Yes, for _me_. You did it for me. To save me. You made for me the sacrifice you wouldn't make for yourself. I owe you my life and I'll never forget this."

Runt's eyes wince, his expression rumples up, the corners of his mouth dipping down - he's very obviously fighting back tears. He sobs, and doesn't talk. Instead, he grabs Eren's wrist and rubs his cheek on his hand.

Eren takes this as permission to pull him into a hug - he does so carefully, trying to feel if Runt is going rigid under his touch, if he's scaring him - but Runt doesn't even seem surprised, he just lets himself be pulled between Eren's arms, collects himself in a little ball against his chest, careful about his wounds.

He feels so bony. He's obviously so much less used to violence and starvation than Eren, so much more delicate, wasting away like a little candle. And the light in his eyes...

For all the mockery he did of his silly princeling arrogance, he'd rather see him sneer down at him a thousand times than see him as he is now, so obviously ashamed, humiliated. Pride suits him so much better. He had kept it so far, even through all the pain and suffering, that light in his eyes, that prideful expression, and now...All Eren can do is hope it's dimmed, but not gone.

He gave up on this, this that Eren doesn't even know how to define, just knows it's important, important enough to justify grieving its loss - not for himself, but for Eren. Eren, the member of a clan that he has been taught to hate since his childhood, who started out treating him with contempt and mocking him, whose life isn't necessary or important at all, especially not to a proud princeling, and yet he did it, and he doesn't even know...

"My name," he whispers against his forehead, like he wants Runt to understand the words through the shape of his lips against his skin rather than through the sound carrying in the rank air of the cell. "My name is Eren. Please remember it. Please remember the name of the person whose life you saved."

Runt is silent for a long moment.

"My name," he finally says, "is Jean. Please remember it, too."

"Jean," Eren repeats, trying to impress it in his mind. It's a pretty name.

For a while, they just stay like that. Eren barely dares to breath, trying not to upset Jean further, who's still sobbing quietly against him.

Eren realizes he is crying, too, and for the first time since he got closed in this place, it's tears of genuine sorrow, not tears of pain and fear. He doesn't know if Jean notices, doesn't really care - it's just such a relief, for a moment, to allow himself to mourn for the energetic and optimistic future doctor and the proud and self-assured Prince that were dragged in this cell some days ago and are now, for all purposes, dead.

Then, Jean pulls back, sits in front of Eren. He's red in the face, obviously embarrassed, and he looks like he wants to apologize, so Eren interrupts him.

"Did you eat already?" he asks.

Jean blinks, then smiles, slowly. He looks so _grateful_ \- Eren has to turn his head to the side, not really able to handle it.

"Yes. Do you want your..."

"No. I can't eat with my insides so scrambled. You can have my portion."

Jean scrunches his nose in disgust, in a way that shows off his pointy canines.

Cute, Eren thinks, then spends a couple seconds contemplating all the ways it's wrong for him to keep on noticing how attractive the Prince is. There are many.

"I'd rather not. I can force myself to keep down a bowl just out of hunger, but two? Nah. Spoiled little princeling, remember?"

Eren laughs - it hurts a little, pulling at his stitches, but it feels good anyway.

"Alright, then. Let's just go to sleep."

"Alright."

Eren is already on his "bed", so he just lays down - but Jean's little portion of straw is in the opposite corner. And yet, he stays fixed next to him, hugging his knees, his little throw of fur, that must have something magic about itself because it keeps on disappearing whenever the man is around and reappering mysteriously when he isn't, wrapped tightly around himself.

He looks so small and lost, Eren is considering further inappropriate things, such as asking if he wants to share his bed, which sounds wrong, but Eren means it in the most innocent way possible. It would be comfortable - he's so thin he wouldn't keep too much space, and...but he's the Prince. Fox Princes don't share beds with Spiders. And after what he went through, he's probably not too keen on physical contact anyway.

"Hey," Eren says.

"Hey."

"It's a bit hard to fall asleep with a public, you know."

"I know, I..." Jean sniffles. "Would you mind if I...slept close to you? You're always so warm, and it's so cold in here...You can say no, if..."

"Of course you can, I...I honestly was tempted to offer," he confesses, a bit surprised, "but I thought the Prince would get offended by such an offer coming from somebody like me."

"I would have, maybe, before, but now, I...let's...forget about this whole Prince thing for a while, alright? It has already put us in enough trouble."

Eren nods and smiles, and Jean smiles back, lying down next to Eren. Eren assumes Jean is alright with him wrapping an arm around him like he did earlier, so he does, and Jean rests his head on his shoulder without hesitation.

Jean might think Eren is warm, but Jean is warm, too, and his body is so long and thin against his.

"I'm sorry," Jean mutters against him. "I'm being a burden."

Eren squeezes his shoulders lightly.

"I'm the one who needed saving, have you forgot?"

"Yeah, but...I'm being so- so needy."

"I don't mind...staying like this."

"...really?"

"Really. I...it makes me feel better, too. To know you're close to me. Safe."

Jean exhales a long sigh.

"Tell me it will be over soon," he asks, with the tone of a child who wants a bedtime story.

"It will be over soon."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"I believe you, Eren. You would never lie to me, would you?"

"Never."

Jean yawns.

"You're not like those assholes back in the Capital. You're good, and honest, and...if we get out of this alive, will you...still be my friend, Eren?" He says his name like it's something very fragile and precious. 

"Yes. When we get out of this, we'll still be friends, Jean."

Jean relaxes against him even more, almost melting in his side, and falls asleep quickly, after that.

Eren doesn't dream that night. He doesn't sleep much, really - he's still in too much pain. But he's also so aware of Jean, the slight weight of his body and how troubled his breath is even in sleep, the beating of his heart where his chest is pressed against his side. Under the sweat and the blood, Jean's skin is warm, his smell is dry and clean in the damp and rank cell, like a wisp of summer, and Eren breathes it in and feels as if he's dreaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I re-read what I write and go, what the hell, self. Go to church.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Posting as fast as I can because I want to catch up before I post the next part. 
> 
> Warnings for this part: pretty much the same as last part with added a nice big sprinkling of mutilation and body horror.

"Oh, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck - what the fuck have you done? What the fuck have you _done_?"

They should learn to synchronize - Eren is about to pass out only now, when Jean has woken up again. Just in time to observe the brilliant results of one particularly creative evening of torture.

"Tsk, tsk. Do you think that's language fit for a Prince?" the man comments, almost absentmindedly.

Sometimes, between the age difference and the patronizing, mock-affectionate way he talks to them, he comes off as a weird uncle talking to his rebellious nephews. It's all very surreal, in Eren's opinion.

"Calm down," Eren says. Last thing he needs is Jean breaking down on him.

"It's- it's not- fuck, Eren, don't fucking _talk_ , I can see _inside of you_ , I can see your fucking _guts_ \- I can see your fucking- Eren, don't..."

"It..."

"Eren, stop _fucking talking_ , I see your lungs expanding when you take a breath to talk!" 

He wonders if Jean remembers what he told him on that second night, after he tried to get the man to kill him. It's _me_ who got gutted like a fish in end, so don't do the mistake you said _I_ would do and allow _him_ to get off on your pain, Eren would like to say to Jean, if Jean looked like he was in any mood for listening. But Jean looks too frantic, too desperate and horrified.

It's understandable, a person being opened from under the sternum to right over the pelvic bone must look rather impressive, but Eren doesn't even feel that much pain. All things considered, his insides were much more scrambled yesterday, with the throught knifing they got. As it is, his guts are still mostly tidy - spilling out of him just a bit, due to the natural pressure of the body, but in working order. 

The important thing is to keep going. Pretend everything is alright. Grit his teeth a little longer. Things will go like they have to, like they always do.

He's not hurt enough to die. The man is allowing him respite. He's being careful to not kill him, more than before.

"Shall we have a little lesson in anatomy, Your Highness?" He sounds so fucking merry. 

Jean turns his head to the side and starts vomiting.

"I guess that's a no, then. I wonder if the Spider's reaction would be better, were your roles reversed - he's going to be a doctor, so I've heard, he would probably be very interested in a little lesson, isn't it?"

Eren tries to shrug nonchalantly without upsetting the parts of him that risk rolling out of his body.

"My father gives me anatomy lessons similar to this."

"Really?" The man's eyes glisten. "Do tell!"

"People condemned to the death penalty. They're already dead most of the times, but sometimes dad gives them a special poison - they still die, but their bodies remain functional for long enough to allow him to show me the major systems at work. They actually are completely unconscious and unfeeling, but they keep enough of the appearance of being alive that sometimes I myself have doubts. All in all, I guess it's only fair you do the same to me."

The man laughs.

"Yeah, it's only fair, you little demon. Now, since you're an anatomy expert, do tell - what's the best way to cut off an arm?"

Eren swallows, but forbids his own voice from wavering, from showing fear.

"If you think you can do it in one swing, use an axe. If you aren't, then a saw. The problem is always the bone. Your best bet is to do it on a juncture, at the elbow, maybe, and pop it out of the socket before you cut. That's how butchers do it. Or break the bone with an hammer - that simplifies things, if you don't care for a clean cut."

"Thank you! You're sure helpful. Have you heard how helpful he is, Prince?"

Sounds of dry heaving. Poor Jean.

Also, the man grabs a hammer, which means that he's actually going to cut off his arm.

What a fun evening.

"Let's see. From which one do we start, left or right? What do you say? Since you've been so helpful, I'll let you pick."

"Right. I'm left-handed."

"Of course! See, when you say please and are polite, I'm perfectly willing to be conciliating, isn't it?"

"You shouldn't...do that," Jean manages, coughing.

"Uhm? And why not, pray tell, little prince?"

"It's...equivalent to..." Jean goes silent.

The man wavers for a moment.

"So, what are you talking about?"

"Please, don't hurt him anymore," Jean says, sweetly.

Eren is reasonably sure he meant to say something else, but the man doesn't notice, he just takes it as another one of Jean's attempts at begging and laughs.

The hammer falls, but Eren passes out before it reaches his arm. Small mercies.

~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

His first thought when he regains his senses is that his arm feels wrong and he can't move it.

His second thought is that he's still tied to the table, the night isn't over, and small mercies are really too fucking small, sometimes, to be truly thankful.

He can hear Jean say something - his voice is broken, and scared.

"Do it, or I'll do worse. You know I will, Prince."

Somebody shuffles closer to his table - Eren realizes it's Jean because of his lighter gait.

A cold fear unfurls inside him when he hears Jean speak again. He's not just scared - he sound _desperate_ , like something important that kept him together came undone.

"Beat me up some more instead, I can take it, I..."

"Do you _have_ to be so difficult?"

The man's voice is suddenly closer, too, and from the little yelp Jean lets out he's also grabbed him.

"Alright, then. If you don't do it, I'll cut off some other part of him, and then burn it so it will take so much longer to grow back. And since it's your fault, I'll let you pick which part."

"No, please, please, no, don't make me..."

"So, what will it be? His eyes? His nose? His other arm?" The man gets even closer. "Uhm, what about his..."

"I'll do it," Jean interrupts. "I'll do it like you want it. But don't touch him anymore, please, don't..."

"See, you can be reasonable when you want to."

Eren opens his eyes.

"Oh, he's woken up!" 

Jean is next to him, his face looking straight at him. His expression is haunted, terrified.

Eren looks down. His belly is back together, it's already healing under the crisscrossing of clumsy stitches - much faster than what Eren thought it would, actually. His arm, too, has been bandaged - at least what's left of it, it ends in a stump right under the elbow.

He turns back to Jean.

"Did you do this?"

Jean nods, even through his sobbing.

"He said...you need to be in good shape because-because..."

Jean sobs louder and covers his face with his hands.

"Please, don't make me do this...not in front of him, not..."

The man laughs.

"Too late, you already promised, didn't you? You gave me your word. And you," he says, wagging his finger at Eren, "don't you dare close your eyes. I don't think you will, thought," he adds, leering. "I bet you have been waiting for a chance to watch. I bet you'll have fun."

Eren feels his heart clench. _He's right, you know_ , the mean little voice inside him points out. _You keep on thinking he's cute._

Eren shuts the voice up. Thinking Jean is cute is a completely different matter. And Jean needs to be able to trust him.

He looks at him. Jean is still sobbing desperately, with abandon, his shoulders shaking.

"Jean...don't worry. It's alright. Please, Jean..."

But Jean isn't really listening to anybody. He just keeps on crying, in a way that makes Eren think he's never going to stop.

~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

He never did stop. Not once, through the whole... _thing_ , he stopped, and he's still crying now, curled up in a corner in a little pool of his own blood. His wounds, while not lethal, surely need tending - but he seems to be too much in shock to even feel the pain. He has been sobbing for so long and so hard he's having trouble breathing, like a child throwing a spectacular tantrum.

The man has gone to rummage around the back of the house, where the stairs that carry down to their cell are, out of the light of the fire. There was knocking, a while ago, and he went out of the door of this room and came back in immediately, carrying a letter in his hands. Eren wonders how the fuck did the messenger even find this place, considering nobody else can, apparently. Magic, probably. He's starting to be real fucking tired of magic.

Whatever he read made him very upset. After, he immediately started rummaging there in the back.

He didn't even bother tying up Jean. Of course, there's only one door aside from the one on the cellar, and the man assured them it's no escape route, and there are no windows in this room, and he was out for no more than a few moments - but at his place, Eren would still have taken the time to tie Jean up.

The man is careless, this is not the first time Eren notices it. Sloppy. You secure the prey. You always secure the prey, even if it seems halfway dead. Nothing is more dangerous than a wounded animal.

Jean, the poor thing, was so out of it he barely noticed, but the man's mistake gives Eren some hope for the future. Somebody who made a mistake of this kind once is going to make more. The trap isn't as secure as their enemies think.

Now, if he could only attract Jean's attention for long enough to calm him down...

"Jean?"

His only answer is another sob, and Jean making himself even smaller in the corner.

"Jean, please..."

"I didn't want you to..." another little sob. "I asked him to please...I didn't want you to...But you...you saw, you saw how disgusting I am..."

"Jean, no! You aren't disgusting. Never."

Jean pulls his head from the nest of his arms. There's an ugly bruise on his cheek, and his eyes are red and liquid with tears.

Eren pushes on.

"Are you disgusted when you patch me up? It's the same thing. _He_ does things to us. He's the one who's disgusting. You...you're just...you."

He's trying to keep his voice low, just in case the man overhears, but he seems completely absorbed in searching whatever it is between the random junk accumulated back there.

Eren sometimes wonders if they're the first guests of this place. It doesn't matter, he'll make sure they're the last.

Jean sobs louder. He has lost all volume control. If only he could convince him to come closer, hold his hand - physical contact tends to help in such cases, and...

"Eren, I don't know for how long I can keep it up still..."

"Jean..."

"My family should have found us already, and they haven't and I...I don't know how to call on them, I don't know..."

"They will find us, for sure! You're the Prince, the whole clan is looking for you..."

"You don't understand! We're going to die in here, we're going to die in here, nobody is coming for us, we'll be already corpses when they find us!"

He's breathing faster and faster, his eyes going wide and glassy.

"They're never going to find us, we're going to die, we're going to..."

"Jean. Jean, come on, look at me, come on..."

Suddenly, just when Eren is starting to get desperate, the sobbing stops. Jean pulls up his face, blinking tears out of his eyes, and turns around with his sudden movement.

He's staring intently at... _something_ \- Eren follows the line of his gaze to see the man, rummaging inside one of the containers in the back - a chest with crude geometrical patterns. 

It doesn't seem to have anything special, but when Jean turns back towards Eren, his mouth is pulled in a thin line, his eyes those of somebody who's deep in thought.

Eren is about to ask what the fuck is going on when the man comes back, carrying a pretty glass bottle.

"Alright," the man announces. "I have bad news."

He moves towards Eren and starts examining the weapons next to him on the table.

"I will miss you two. I will have to nab myself at least another new Spider soon, to ease the loneliness," he says to Eren. "Maybe your sister! Your delightful sister, real pretty. I saw her while I was spying on you. Almost took her. I picked you because _she_ said you were better, because you get into fights so it would make sense you killed the Prince."

Eren grits his teeth. At least Mikasa is safe. Small mercies. 

Then again, Eren has to admit Mikasa would have found a way to kill the man and escape days ago, now, instead of forcing Jean to...no.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I had you, you're fun. And I'll have her afterwards anyway, when your clan falls into disruption because of war. Nobody will miss a tiny little Spider girl. I'll tie her up to this same table, and I'll keep the bottle with your eyes in it turned towards us the whole time. She won't feel lonely at all!"

So that's what the bottle is for, Eren realizes, his stomach lurching.

Jean doesn't talk, doesn't even breath. He seems to be listening carefully to everything the man says, but Eren can tell he's still deep in thought, almost distracted.

"My only regret is, she'll never know this is where I tortured her brother." 

"Why wouldn't you tell her? Once she's in here, she won't get out. It doesn't matter if she knows about the plan," Jean says.

The man and Eren both regard him with a shocked look - then, the man bursts into laughter.

"Oh, I like how you think! Yes, I do. Been spending too much time with me, have you? Been rubbing off on you. I'd tell her if it was in me, but I'm bound to secrecy." 

"By a spell," Jean finishes. "Whenever you try to talk about the plan...your lips close. You can't even call _her_ by her name."

"Exactly, clever Prince. Even if they find me and try to torture it out of me, I won't be able to tell! Oh, _she_ has been so careful. But I bet carving up the Spider girl will be fun anyway."

"I could break the spell for you," Jean says. 

The man looks at him with a little wry smile.

"What are you doing, trying to smooth me over? I've already trusted one little sneaky Fox too many, thank you," he says. "Plus, anything like that would make _her_ even more angry. See, I won't get to do anything fun anymore to any little Spider or Fox if _she_ is angry. And _she_ is starting to be _pissed_ , you know."

"Because her trap hasn't been working yet," Jean says. 

His expression has lost all traces of the despair and shock from before, and Eren realizes that he's not just chatting, buying time. These aren't questions, he's connecting the dots, his eyes sharp and focused.

The man nods.

"I told her! This plan is stupid and complicated. What if they don't snap. What if they don't kill each other. But _she_ said, of course they will. The Prince is prideful and the Spider is easily angered and they will snap on you, _she_ said, and kill each other. _She_ didn't believe me when I said that you weren't going to, but I knew you weren't!"

"So she's not very bright when it comes to people," Jean mumbles.

The man chuckles. 

"You tryna guess who _she_ is? It's too late for that."

"I have my suspicions. And, I guess I want the intellectual satisfaction of having outsmarted her, before I die."

"You're one clever boy. It won't do you any good, though. But you're clever! Almost as clever as me. I could tell it wasn't going to work since the very first day. See, you get to know a person when you hurt them. Much more than if you had simply stalked them for a while."

The man walks to Eren, presses a knife just under his eyes. 

"I know you better than your mummy Spider, nowadays, I bet. Did she die under your baby Spider eyes?" 

Eren tenses, but doesn't say anything.

"Of course she did. See? I can tell. Since the very first time I hurt the Prince in front of you, I could tell. I could read you two like an open book. And now the Prince looks at you like you hung the Moon in the sky, and you look at him like he's made of solid gold, just like I thought you would, and I have a problem. Well. For me it's not a problem, quite the opposite. It's so damn fun. As long as I have your death to hold over his head, he'll do all the things I tell him to do. All the filthiest, all the most disgusting things. But you know that, don't you?"

He rounds his head to smile crookedly at Jean, who cowers and flinches, but doesn't lose the sharp look on his face. 

"He had fun watching, you know. Oh, he cried and begged me to stop, but he was throwing you such hungry looks...And the reverse is true, too. As long as the Spider thinks he's taking the fall for the Prince, I could give him a saw and order him to cut off his own leg and he'll do it, no questions asked. Went very close today, in fact, isn't it? It's just too damn fun!"

"But she doesn't give a damn about your fun," Jean says. "She wants it to be over before anybody realizes what's really going on, up in the Capital."

The man nods angrily.

" _She_ is breathing down my neck, that fucking _bitch_! I wish it was her on this table, I really do. I care about you, I wish I could just keep you two with me. You both have been such fun, boys. So cute and so sweet to me, giving me all you've got."

"Keep us, then. Who cares about her?" Jean says, and Eren hopes there's a grand brilliant design coming into shape behind his words because otherwise he's definitely gone crazy.

The man shakes his head, sad.

"I can't. I wish I had at least the time for my present, but I got a message. We're supposed to be done in less than a week. But I really wanted to give you your present! It was such a cute idea. Do you want to know what it was?" 

"Of course," Jean says. 

Eren is reasonably sure this is the weirdest conversation he's ever been made aware of.

"I would have made the Spider fuck you. Wouldn't that have made you happy?"

Oh, fuck. Oh no, no no no no.

"I'm...not sure..." Jean says, pacing his words.

His face is a mixture of very complicated feelings that Eren isn't really equipped to understand, but his eyes still have that distant look of somebody who's planning something, to the point it's almost like he doesn't really notice the enormity of what the man is saying.

Which is all for the best, really - and if Jean is working on a plan, that at least gives Eren some hope.

The man seems genuinely surprised by Jean's lack of enthusiasm.

"You being shy, now? But I can tell how you look at him. I'm not even jealous, you know, you're both young. I know how it is when you're young. It's cute. I thought it would be a nice present. A last nice thing before you both die."

Jean chews on his lip and turns his face to the side, still calculating. He says nothing.

Frankly, Eren doesn't know what he can add to the conversation, either, and he hates, hates, hates, the flush that has been creeping from the back of his neck, despite everything.

He meets Jean's eyes. He's blushing too, vaguely, and still chewing on his lip.

Maybe...he should insist they do it anyway. He could be nice to Jean. Nicer than the man. He'd be nice and it wouldn't hurt like the man makes it hurt. It could be a little bit of respite for them both. 

_Do you even hear yourself?_ the mean little voice in his brain says. _Animal. Jean trusts you. He trusts you, and all you can think of to repay him is that. Animal. Disgusting._.

Eren turns his eyes away, feeling suddenly ashamed, like Jean can read the horrible things he's thinking on his face.

It's not because he finds it hot, it's because it would be respite. Rest. Something relatively gentle to carry them through the night, up until the man leaves them alone. Better than being beaten or having pieces of him cut off. Better than watching Jean...

"But there's no time for that, now," the man kept on talking. "No no. No time. We have one week at most and I have to break you. And that's a lot of hard work, and not really as fun as all the fun stuff we did so far. It's boring stuff. Then I'll wait until you're both healed enough and you'll kill him and he'll kill you and they'll find your corpses and _she_ will stop being a stupid bitch and leave me alone."

Eren finds himself spying Jean again. Jean doesn't talk, now, his back tense. He nods, but more to himself than anything.

"You'll be separated from now on. This is the last night you're spending together in the cell. I'd tell you to enjoy it, except I'm going to make really really really really sure you can't. Sorry," he adds, moving towards Eren. "Could be all cozed up with the Prince now. I would have let you two kiss, even. The Prince would have looked so pretty, crying desperately as he gives you his last goodbyes. It would have made the moment you kill him so much more romantic. I love that kind of stuff, I'm such a sap at heart. Instead you're here, alone, and I'm about to break your body to the point that you won't even be able to see his face or talk to him, ever again." He presses the knife under his eyes again. "At least I can start with my eyes collection, now," he says.

"No, wait, start with me!" Jean yells from his corner, but the man ignores him.

~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

The touch he wakes up to is soft, kind, temptative. It's a caress, along the sides of his ruined jaw.

He tries to open his eyes, but they've been bandaged closed. His healing is still slow, he's in so much pain - but the touch is kind, and Eren recognizes the hand - not calloused, soft, long fingers, sharp nails - Jean, he tries to say the name, at least mouth it. Jean is taking care of him. It's over, for today.

The hand pauses, then moves away.

"Eren? You can't talk, right? So we'll do it like this." 

One hand wraps around Eren's own.

"Squeeze my hand once for yes, and twice for no. You understand?"

Eren squeezes Jean's hand, once.

"This is a yes, good. And for no?"

Eren squeezes Jean's hand twice, fast.

"Good. I have...done what I could for your wounds, but...Oh, what has he done to you, Eren...what has he done...he took your eyes, and...he...why, why..."

Jean sounds like he's started crying, and Eren squeezes Jean's hand, gently.

"Right. I'm the doctor. Reassure the patient," Jean says, composing himself. "You're alright. I mean, I've never seen something alive look so dead before, but...well. You _are_ alive."

Yes, Eren says with his hand. 

"You know what? It doesn't matter. I'm just happy you're here with me, now." 

Yes, Eren repeats. 

Jean sighs.

"You're healing. It's still slow, for now, but...You're going to be out for most of tomorrow, too, as far as _he_ knows, which means that I will have to entertain him for - no, calm down," Jean says when Eren starts squeezing his hand desperately. "I am alright with this, I promise...Eren...calm down...I have...I have...something. Something good. But you have to let go of my hand a moment, alright?"

Eren does, with some regret.

He hears Jean stand and walk around. He knows he goes to the door a moment, before going to collect something in the corner where they keep their stuff, and moving back to Eren.

Eren feels him putting something next to his head and grab his hand again, before bending to Eren's ear.

"Can you hear me?" he says, his voice dropping to a whisper.

Eren squeezes once.

"Good. It sounds like _he_ 's sleeping like a log, and it doesn't seem like he can hear us very well when we talk in here anyway, but, better safe than sorry." He takes a deep breath before saying the next words. "Eren. I know how to get out of here."


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel so tempted to withhold this part for like a month but then again, you could just read ahead on the kinkmeme. But I like writing cliffhangers.
> 
> Warnings for this part: some violence. Maybe some creepy imagery.

Eren is woken up by a nervous Jean much earlier than when he's ready.

"I think he's...yeah, he's coming downstairs soon," Jean says, his voice trembling with fear, but determined.

"Good morning to you, too," Eren mutters, his head still kind of dizzy with sleep.

"You can talk now, good! Do you remember everything we said tonight?"

"Yeah, I...give me a moment."

Eren tries to sit up, opens his eyes and finds them still bandaged - he pulls up the bandage.

"Eren, don't...oh...they've grown back! Uh, but...have they always been yellow, or..." Jean says, surprised, and it takes Eren a moment to realize he's talking about his eyes.

"They switched color with the second pair, probably. It happens every once in a while," he says, staring at Jean.

He's so happy he gets to do that, stare at Jean. He feels like there's something really worth celebrating about that, even if his memories of the past day are still hazy.

"Second pair? Gross!" Jean smiles in that way that shows his canines, and isn't that the prettiest thing, Eren is just so damn happy Jean is here and visible and willing to smile to him. "I need to see your Other Face, one of these days."

"I've been told it's extremely creepy. Jean..." He shakes his head. The memories of Jean's plan are starting to resurface, finally. "I remember...I remember. Yeah. But...are you sure..."

"So far I've been right, isn't it? You healed much faster than yesterday. Look at your arm."

Eren extends the arm in front of him. There's already the stump of a hand forming, with tiny nubs for fingers.

"I can't believe he didn't realize cutting off the arm would mean cutting off one of the cuffs, too. I mean, I had noticed he's careless, and I didn't really realize either until you pointed it out, but...it's still kind of obvious."

Jean smiles, but then his expression gets sad, heavy. "I'm sorry. I thought only of the strategical advantage and didn't even try to stop him."

"You couldn't have done anything to stop him. And I probably would have done the same, if I had realized how much cutting off just one would influence the power of those things. I feel almost good today." 

"That's probably the dumplings, too."

"Yeah! Those things work miracles. Though I wish you ate something, too. At least your part of the broth."

"I couldn't afford the risk of you not healing fast enough. Alright, now. Lie down, we have to find a way to hide your healing." 

"But...I don't want you to..."

Jean smiles brightly.

"I'll be careful, don't worry. You know I'm a coward."

"But...I will have to leave him alone with you and he's determined to..."

Jean presses a finger to his lips.

"Eren, please."

"Jean..." 

"Eren. He is coming," Jean turns his head with that sudden movement. "He is coming _now_."

"I don't..."

"This might be our last chance!"

Jean is right, of course, and Eren gives in, lies back down and lets Jean fluff up the covers around him and cover his eyes with the bloody bandages again, hiding the progress of his healing.

"The fact I'm going along with it doesn't mean that I like this plan. In fact, I'd like to go on record as being generally very against it," Eren mutters.

"Duly noted," Jean answers.

Then, the door slams open.

Eren doesn't see - can't see, has to pretend to be still the good half of a corpse - but he hears, and he knows what's supposed to happen anyway.

Jean jumps up with a desperate, crazed scream (uh, good acting there) and throws himself bodily at the man. He feels scratches being opened on his own chest - he doesn't move still, he's become very good at ignoring pain, after all, and these are tiny caresses compared to the shit he underwent yesterday - and then he hears the man curse, and noises of running, and then...screaming, from the top of the stairs.

It turns into crying, getting fainter as Jean is dragged away.

He didn't hear the door slam closed. Just like Jean said yesterday night.

Sloppy, so sloppy, careless, so sure he has the both of them in his power. Eren isn't the only one who noticed.

The scratches on his chest are closing on their own, immediately, just like they would do under normal circumstances, with his healing ability in full swing. Between the lack of cuffs on his arm, the double dose of food, and those marvelous "emergency dumplings" (special food, Jean had explained, never going bad and extremely energetic) Eren almost feels back to himself.

Well, maybe not. But he feels up to carrying out the plan, and that is enough. 

He closes his eyes again and focuses on finish healing fast. 

This is the hardest part of the plan, for Eren.

"You will have to wait," Jean had said yesterday. "I'm sorry. I know it's not really in your nature, patience. Which is weird for a Spider, now that I think of it. But I will take a moment for me to distract him completely. I'd tell you to wait until you're healed enough, but I know you would go right now, blind and without an arm, if it was in you, so I will tell you to count up to one hundred, and then backwards. Can you do that?"

Eren closes his eyes, goes back to pretending he's dead.

One, two, three, four, five, six...

He wonders what's going on with Jean.

No, he shouldn't wonder that. He shouldn't think of that at all.

...eleven, twelve, thirteen...

His arm is pulsating, burning, in the good way, in the way that means it's healing - same for the bones inside his legs, and the cuts on his poor belly. His fingers are finishing sprouting back from the stump of his hand, too, pushing out - Eren always wonders if this is how a field feels in the spring, at this point.

...twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven...

Eren can feel that, dumplings or not, he's pushing his healing abilities to their extreme limit. He'll feel exhausted soon - if he fails...But having both hands will make the rest of the plan much easier.

...thirty-three, thirty-four, thirty-five...

Why did he think of failure? It's all he can think of, now. Failing. 

Being killed. Being tortured to death.

Failing Jean. Being the reason for his death. Watching Jean being killed under his eyes, tortured in excruciating ways, unable to stop it.

...forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty...

His family finding their corpses.

War. 

Mikasa falling in battle. His father being killed. What little is left of the clan disbanded. 

Death raining upon both their clans, all of that brought on by Eren's inability to follow a simple plan.

...fifty-eight, fifty-nine, s-seventy...

He won't fail. He won't fail. Eren has never failed when it counted.

...seventy-eight, eighty, ninety, one hundred.

"Close enough," he mutters to himself, sitting up.

His hand is fine. His fingers are...not exactly fingers by the more general definition of the word, but he can pinch stuff with them. They'll do.

The man never came downstairs to close the door back up. He really isn't very bright. Eren is kind of pissed at himself for letting himself be under the power of such an idiot for so long, but then again, as Jean pointed out again yesterday, he had powerful friends. The friends are the ones they should be truly afraid of.

He sneaks up to the door, and looks up.

The stairs are tall and uneven, and the only light is at the top, the flickering of the fire, not really reaching down here. Which is better for Eren, because it means that at the moment he's mostly invisible and he has excellent night vision anyway. Better than the man's, which is something Jean and him are banking on.

Nobody is coming down.

Eren knows that from the moment he puts his head out of the hole to the moment he's _supposed_ to sneak back downstairs (that isn't what he's going to do, but Jean didn't hear that part - gonna be a big surprise) no mistakes are allowed, so he takes a moment to focus, retrace the steps he's supposed to be taking.

This is when he starts hearing the noise.

It's a rhythmic kind of whine, going lower and then higher in pitch. At the beginning, it doesn't even seem like a noise from something that is alive, more like the complaining of an instrument being tuned, so, so faint.

Is it a good noise? A bad noise? A 'fuck, the plan has failed before even starting' noise? A 'help is finally here' noise? A 'stop being so careful, RUN' noise? Or a completely unrelated noise? Maybe the man has one of those kettles that whistle. 

Fuck, Jean would be better at this. He has much better hearing.

Eren moves to the bottom of the stairs to hear more clearly, keeping himself pressed against the side of the wall. And since he's there, it doesn't really make sense to wait anymore, so he puts his foot on the first step and starts going up, keeping his ears plastered. 

Halfway on the stairs, it hits him. The noise is actually two noises. It's Jean whining, high-pitched, at an almost constant pace, and the man...he's laughing. Giggling.

He forces himself to go slow, to put one foot after the other. It's physical effort, but he manages. As much as he wants to just run up and gut _something_ , at this point the best bet is to finish with the plan.

Finally, his head peeks from over the edge of the stairs. The fire's light barely reaches the back of the room, where Eren is, but the man...

Eren turns his head back towards the bottom of the stairs like he's been slapped, takes a couple deep breaths.

Jean...is with him. The man is distracted. Be fast, Eren. Don't think of the blood. You haven't seen any blood. There wasn't any blood. Everything is fine. Everything according to plan.

He turns back, but keeps his eyes focused, not straight on the man, but on his shadow, projected by the fire against the wall opposite Eren.

He's taken aback for a moment, before realizing Jean appears as a fox in the shadow. He had forgotten.

But he's wasting time.

Eren doesn't want to see the details, just keeps the shadows in the corner of his eyes to make sure nothing too important changes. Instead, he focuses on the prize.

The chest. He sees it now, if he turns his head just so. Geometric patterns. 

Eren moves up. This is the most dangerous moment - the highest risk of being spotted, when he emerges from the stairs and before he manages to flatten himself in the dark corner.

But he's a Spider. He knows how to move in the shadows, quick and silent. And even if his wounds don't make things any easier on him, the man is suitably distracted. _Distract him_ , Jean's voice repeats in his brain. Yet again, Eren is forcing him to...

The more he thinks about it, the worse it will get, so he just traces the steps with his eyes once and then _goes_ , silent and fast.

He presses himself against the wall with gratitude, crouches and makes himself tiny in the corner right next to the chest, back in the cover of shadows. His heart is beating so hard he doesn't know how they don't hear him.

He _has_ to look at them, now, to check.

The man is still...occupied ( _oh fuck so much blood, so much, so much blood, has he killed him, please don't be dead_ ). Jean is...looking straight at him, for a moment, but then his head rolls back, and his eyes looked glassy anyway.

Eren bites his lip, forces himself to focus back on the task.

It seems like a miracle when the chest is indeed unlocked, opens without even a whisper. Another person would be worrying, now, thinking it was too easy.

But Eren is Eren, and he doesn't give a damn about easy and hard. The chest is open, and in a corner, like Jean said, a little bundle of a red rag.

Eren picks it up. 

There's a noise, like a long sigh, and he freezes - but the shadows haven't moved, and no other noises have changed, except Jean's whining has gotten louder, now.

The thing in his hand, the little bundle...inside it, there's something round. Hard, like a glass bead, but warm, and somehow feeling...alive, like it's vibrating, or pulsating - like the tiny heart of a bird.

~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

"I would've told you, since day one, if it had been my own secret to keep," Jean explained yesterday, urgent. "But the survival of my entire family, of my entire _clan_ , depends on how well-kept this secret is. So please, not for me - I'll trust you with my own life, any day, believe me - but for my family...swear that this is a secret you'll carry to your grave and beyond."

Eren squeezed his hand, slowly, and in his mind he made the gravest oath he knew.

"I'll trust you," Jean said, like he could sense it. "The Star Sphere. Every Fox has one. It's...what we use to harness our magical power. I really...don't know how to explain it, but...it's mine, and it's like half of me. With it, I'm...as powerful as a Prince of the Foxes should be. Without it...well, you've seen. The man...he went straight for it, knew exactly what to look for. That's how I knew immediately it was another Fox who betrayed me. But, we'll think of that later. I thought he had...thrown it away, or sold it, or something...but today...when he opened that chest, suddenly I could sense it again. 

"For a moment, I thought about just going for it. But there's a problem. It's an old curse. Foxes cannot steal a Sphere, not even their own. If somebody captures it and the Fox steals it back, the magic of the Sphere would make it disappear right from the hand of the Fox and appear back in the hands of the person who took it, until the Fox manages to trade it back in a...honest way. So, I can't steal it back, even if I know where it is. 

"But _you_ can."

~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

Eren wants so badly to unwrap the little bundle, take a peek at the Sphere, but he has no time. Once he's sure it's the right object, he shoves it in what's left of his trousers, and stands up.

According to the plan, he should now slide back inside the cell and lie down again, waiting for the man to carry Jean back in there, so that Eren can give him the Sphere and then they'll take it from there. It would be the most prudent plan.

Eren is terrible at being prudent.

He moves along the shadowed wall, silent, until he's right behind the man. It's difficult to climb up the wall with his human body, but there's random junk hanging here and there, helping him, and then he has a vantage point good enough. He prepares a rag in his hand, and jumps.

He lands right on the man's back, covers his eyes with the rag, coils it a couple times, enough that taking it off will take a few seconds. 

Then, he jumps off the man, landing on his foot with an 'oof'. He shoves the man with his shoulder on his chest, making him fall on his ass, and looks at Jean.

Jean seems passed out. He should be passed out, with all the blood he's lost.

"Eren," he says, turning his head towards the noise with his usual sudden movement. His eyes are open just a slit. There are big nails going through his hands, into the table. His stomach seems to be the beginning of an experiment in flaying. "You fucking idiot. It's early."

"Yeah, yeah," Eren says. He pulls out the first nail.

"And you're -ouf!- supposed to go downstairs."

Second nail comes off. 

"Of course, princeling."

He grabs Jean in a bridal carry and runs with him towards the other door, the one opposite to their cell.

He expected to go out - instead, there's another room, this one with wide windows on the forest - and another door.

Eren dumps Jean unceremoniously on ground - he howls in pain - and tries to open it - locked - then to kick it down.

"It's charmed too, dumbass," Jean mutters behind him, without heat. 

"Alright," Eren answers, and goes to lock the internal door, just in time - he hears the man slam on it, on the other side.

Eren barricades the door with a chair.

"Should hold him off for a moment," he says.

"You got it," Jean says, behind him. "Gimme."

"I...uh..." Eren turns towards Jean and kneels in front of him.

He starts looking for the Sphere. Where the fuck did he put the thing? Did it fall? It didn't fall, did it? He wasn't stupid enough to use the cloth wrapped around the Sphere to blind the man, was he? No, he remembers carrying it in the other pocket...

The man stopped slamming at the door, probably realized there's something blocking it.

"C'mon here, silly Spider."

An exasperated Jean grabs him by the trousers and shoves a hand in them.

"Hey!"

Jean pulls out the little red bundle.

"I can sense it, can't I?"

He offers the bundle back to Eren.

"Huh...No, it's yours."

"Idiot! You have to give it to me in exchange of something."

"Oh," Eren says, taking the bundle back. "Something like what?"

There's a violent slam, and the door's wood crackles dangerously.

"I don't know! Anything, food, water, uh, wealth? Intelligence? I could also promise you something to..."

Eren grabs him by the back of the neck and kisses him.

It's little more than a quick peck, but it leaves them both breathless.

"There," he says at the end. "A kiss for your Sphere. It's fair."

Jean seems a little taken aback - alright, he seems _a lot_ taken aback - but shakes himself off fast enough when Eren offers him the bundle.

He opens it. 

The thing is tiny. It looks like a big pearl, of a bright white, slightly tinged pink - but it shines with its own internal light, in Jean's hand, and in the shine of its light, Jean seems to glow, too, like he did in his rich clothes the first time Eren saw him.

Jean coos at it like it's a pet. The Sphere shines even harder back.

Eren is so mesmerized by the sight that when behind him the wood breaks and the door is destroyed, he barely notices. 

And then, he feels a piercing pain across his back, and screams.

"Eren!" Jean calls out.

Eren feels close to passing out, but he forces himself to keep his eyes open, because...

...because Jean is standing up to his full height, and the cuffs are breaking off his wrists and ankles with a massive _bang_ , and the Sphere is next to him, flying, shining on his face.

Eren sees it, Jean's Other Face. It's _beautiful_ , and terrifying, and ferocious, and Eren feels like he's in love.

Behind him, the man howls, in fear and anger.

He can feel him raising the thing he shove in his back - axe, it's an axe, he will discover later on - over his head.

"Make a move and I'll kill him!" he yells.

"No, you will not," Jean answers, very simply, and extends a hand in front of himself, the palm towards the man.

The man stumbles backwards, Eren hears something heavy fall behind him - he lost his weapon - but he wraps one arm around Eren's neck, probably intending to use him as a shield.

Nor Jean nor Eren seem to care much. Jean looks at Eren, reassuring, and smiles at him, seemingly beyond all fear, and Eren feels suddenly a lot less invested in anything that isn't Jean smiling at him.

 _You're falling for the thrall of the Fox_ , the usual little mean voice says.

Didn't I tell you to shut the fuck up already?, Eren answers.

"I'll kill him! I'll kill you all!" the man says, but his voice seems broken in sheer terror, and Eren suddenly realizes why when Jean raises his eyes on the man and speaks again.

He repeats "No, you will not," but together with him there's an echo, like a hundred other voices, and Eren finally manages to detach his eyes from Jean long enough to look at the windows...

...that are filled with little firey dots, shining like coins in the dark.

Fox eyes. 

They've been found.

"We could," Jean starts, and through him speak a thousand voices - his entire clan - "do things to you. Things of unspeakable terror and pain, things that are kept dark and deep because sunlight itself would shy from them."

The man is frozen, Eren can tell - he's struggling, trying to move, but Jean's power is keeping him still, chained, his arm around Eren's neck.

"But," and now it's Jean alone talking, and again he's looking down at Eren - "why go the nice way?" 

Eren feels the cuffs dropping off him.

Sometimes, Eren is a bit slow on the uptake.

This is _not_ one of those times.

His Other Face comes out, so fast it's painful, and he bites in the man's arm, first, with his mouth, to keep him still - then his poison fangs go in, as deep as he can put them.

The man doesn't even scream. He just falls, when Eren lets him go.

Everybody knows there's poison in a Spider's veins, and that they can extract it in various manners through their bite, changing its composition slightly, and those watered down versions are the ones their enemies are mostly acquainted with. 

But the Thousand Curses is the purest thing, the closest to the poison that runs through their bodies, the secret to their infinite ability to heal themselves. It works on humans and other demons, too, even more than it does on a Spider - it slows down aging to the point that being poisoned by the Thousand Curses is the closest one can get to immortality.

There's a catch, though.

Every single second of that immortal existence is marred by the most excruciating pain imaginable. The few people who have survived very small doses of the Thousand Curses describe it as having every nerve of their body pulled out, and again and again, and all the senses are blocked so that the mind can feel nothing but pain, pain, and pain, and yet the poison makes it so that the memory of previous pain never fixates, never remains, but instead lingers like a nightmare, so that the present pain is always the worst one, and the person knows they can only hope for worse pain in the future.

Eren doesn't know if he managed to pull it off. He never did it, he only ever had to share his milder poisons with the world. But his father says that with the proper motivation, it's actually relatively easy to make the Thousand Curses, and Eren feels confident his motivation was top-notch.

Jean's smile almost splits his face in two. 

Eren grins back, even as his head starts spinning. He passes out just as he hears the noise of glass being broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I'm terrible at:
> 
> \- infodumping, physical descriptions and flashbacks
> 
> \- action and fast-paced scenes
> 
> \- inserting those things into each other without interrupting the flow of the writing.
> 
> Guess what half of this fic's storytelling hinges on. (Basically the only part of my writing I feel somewhat confident about are inner monologues and dialogue).
> 
> I don't mind the fact that it's challenging, actually part of the reason why I like writing this so much is because of how challenging it is, but I wish there was some objective way to establish that I'm doing a decent job before posting. 
> 
> Maybe I should start inflicting this on a beta.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some violent and gore-ish imagery at the beginning, but the worst part is over. It'll be all talk for a while, exploring the setting and the intrigues at Court, and slow burn.
> 
> Also yeah, I have time to post today so I'll just post it all. Sorry for spamming the tags. Also, is anybody even subscribed to this fic? Well, if you are I apologize a ton for spamming you too, ok.

The air is damp, and thick. Next to him, Jean is letting out a long whimper, like an instrument that needs tuning. The pain never ends.

There's a regular noise, a thump, echoing in the room, coming from outside the door.

But this is not possible. Eren ran away.

The noise is the man's footfalls, coming down the stairs. 

This is not possible. He was almost out, he was...did he dream that? Did he dream about running away, about...

Suddenly the door slams open. The man isn't there, yet, the footfalls aren't getting closer. It was the wind that opened the door. He didn't lock it. Sloppy. Secure the prey.

Outside, Eren sees...light, the prairie at sunset, and tiny little firey dots, fireflies, moving in and out of the tall grass.

"Jean!" he calls. "Jean, we can go, we can escape!"

Jean doesn't move, just keeps on whining, lying down on his face.

Eren moves to him and turns him on his back and sees - his chest has been opened and his heart has been pulled out - the noise, it wasn't footfalls, it was his heartbeat, and he hears it and it's so loud, like a tambourine, and Jean isn't whimpering, he's giggling, laughing now, and Eren is trying to scream but what comes out is laughter, too, the man's rasping laughter, like the noise of something being grated, and his sister, Mikasa is upstairs, the man got to Mikasa, he can hear her scream, he can hear her...

"Eren! Eren, wake up! Eren!" 

Eren sits up suddenly, in a pool of sweat, and almost collides face-first with Mikasa, who is leaning down on his bed.

_His_ bed. In _his_ room.

Eren blinks. For a long moment, nothing adds up.

But then, Mikasa's worried face comes fully into focus, and Eren feels something inside him - something that he kept wound tight all this time, something that he had to work hard to keep together - unclench, like there was a fist squeezing his heart and now it isn't there anymore.

"Mikasa?"

"Eren."

"Is it...over?"

She sighs, then smiles, one of her rare, rare smiles. This one is so shy, trembling, trying so hard to reassure and help, and Eren has to offer a tiny little smile back.

It probably looks more like a grimace, but Mikasa never cared about appearances.

"Yes, it's over. You're home, now."

Eren covers his mouth with his hand and lets out a little sob. He doesn't want to cry, he doesn't want to make Mikasa worry even more, but...

Suddenly, she feels her circling his waist, squeezing the air out of him, pressing the side of her head to his chest.

"Eren," she says. "Oh...Eren..."

"Mikasa..."

"It will be alright, now that you're here, it will be alright..."

"Yes. It will be alright."

He holds her, too, and doesn't let go even as he lets himself fall back on the bed.

She's silent, and he lets her be, listening to the coming and going of her breath, broken by her sobs. Her sister never seemed like one for tearful reunions, but then again, Eren supposes he never gave her so much reason to worry.

And after all, it's not like he minds. He holds her a little tighter.

He looks around. His room is the same old one, probably a bit cleaner than usual. It seems to be the last light of the evening, or dawn. It's quiet outside.

Nobody else is there.

"Where's Jean?"

"Wh-oh. He's in another room, recovering. He will be fine." Mikasa reassures him quickly, not letting go.

He breaths out in relief - _Jean is safe, Jean will be fine_ \- and doesn't let go, either, and lets himself be lulled back to sleep by her heavy, comforting presence.

~~__________________________________________________________________________________________~~

When he comes to again, he recognizes the ceiling of his room.

All his pieces are back in their right place, and he doesn't feel tired, just hungry, and he wonders if it was nothing but a long, terrible nightmare.

But of course it wasn't - parts of him still ache and pull, in his body, and also in some secret parts of his soul.

He tries to sit up, and is interrupted by Mikasa's authoritative voice.

"You're awake. Stay put. I'm calling father."

He sits up as soon as he hears her walk away.

When they come back upstairs, they're carrying a food tray, and Eren is awake enough to notice how tired they both look.

"Father."

"Eren," he answers, and just like Mikasa, he lets himself go to an uncharacteristic display of affection, and ruffles his hair. "My child. From what I hear, I should be honored to call you mine."

Eren feels his ears go red.

"I would've preferred to see father less proud and Eren safe," Mikasa says, angry.

"Oh, I'm not happy that...he had to go through all that. But some good came together with the bad, and I think it would do him well to know." 

"It would do him better to eat," Mikasa says, placing the tray next to Eren's bed.

"Hey, I'm right here, stop talking like that," Eren mutters back, even as he grabs a bowl and starts shoving food into his mouth. "But thanks. I was starving."

"Don't speak with your mouth full," his father says, smiling. "Those manners don't become the savior of the Empire."

Eren's chewing slows down.

"Huh?"

"Don't overwhelm him," Mikasa says.

"This isn't something overwhelming, though. He knows this."

"He doesn't look like he does."

"Really? Eren, you really don't know you saved the life of the future Emperor?"

Eren's stomach does a little somersault.

"Future...Emperor?"

His father looks at him curiously.

"Yes, the Fox - he told you he's the Prince, right? The Prince is the future Emperor, of course."

Eren swallows, slowly.

Yeah...that's...some obvious connect-the-dots thing he's not sure how he missed.

Of course. The Prince is the future Emperor. That's why he's called the Prince. Because he's the future Emperor.

Jean is the future Emperor. He watched the future Emperor debase himself for his sake. He almost killed himself to save the future Emperor. He held the future Emperor as they both cried in sorrow.

He kissed the future Emperor.

Eren is reasonably sure you can be sentenced to death for less.

"You really had no idea?" Mikasa asks, apparently unphased, but Eren knows her enough to recognize her amused tone.

"Shut up! I was being tortured, I didn't have time to put everything together!"

"Sorry," she says, letting her eyes fall to the ground in shame.

Eren sighs.

"No, alright. I should have realized it."

"No. In my joy to have you back in one piece, it's easy to forget...what you went through."

Eren grabs her hand and squeezes.

"No, I _really_ should have realized it. I am an idiot. And honestly, it's better if you forget, if it makes you so sad. Fuck, I would like to forget, too."

His father allows the moment to pass before restarting to talk.

"Alright, let's go in order, then. We've kept you sleeping with heavy narcotics for about three days."

"Three days?"

"It was the best way to help you heal," his father says, his expression the one of the determined doctor.

"Yeah, but three days..."

"Was the bare minimum. Shush and eat," Mikasa interrupts. 

"The Prince is laying in another room, as Mikasa told you. He just made it on time to tell us about...what happened." He exchanges a quick look with Mikasa. "At least parts of it. We - me and his escort, the Commander of the Imperial Guard - suspect he...omitted some parts, especially after...visiting you both in detail. We hoped you could help shed some light."

Eren stops eating for a moment.

"If Jean doesn't want to tell, it's not my place to do it in his stead," he says quietly. "At most, I can discuss it with him."

"I understand."

"He's still asleep, you say - but his condition is..."

"It's good. He'll just need more time. He's not a fast healer like you, and he kept pushing himself despite being in desperate conditions. Fortunately, the Commander had the good sense to listen to him when he said he wanted to go to the leader of the Spider clan."

"Why, where else they wanted to go with Jean so weak? The Capital's too far!"

"Oh, some people were ready to risk their Prince's life over not letting a filthy Spider put his filthy hands on him, I'm sure. But the Commander is a man of honor - as much as a Fox can be, at least -and good sense, which is just as important. But, I digress." His father seems to realize something, and furrows his brow. "You call the Prince by his name?"

"...Well, maybe I'm not allowed anymore, now. I wouldn't have dared to address him with his name if...and I guess it was a weird situation. It will be hard to get out of the habit, but I guess I...probably won't get that many chances of talking with him again, right? He has to go back to the Capital as soon as possible or something."

As he speaks, he realizes how true what he's saying is. It really is like that - what brought such familiarity between them was a special circumstance. Sure, J-the Prince said that he wanted to be his friend, but...he shouldn't hold him to promises made in a moment of total despair, Eren knows.

Maybe the Prince has forgotten. Maybe he remembers it with a cringe and wants to pretend it never happened. Maybe he wants to be his friend, but his family has the means to convince him otherwise.

He should be ready to accept the idea that he won't ever see him again.

His father exchanges another look with Mikasa.

"The Prince speaks very highly of you. He says you saved his life."

Eren wants to hide his face in the pillow.

"He saved my life, too. Various time. And the things he put himself through to do it...Even the last thing we did...when he was able to regain his powers and call on the other Foxes...it was only because he made up a plan himself. He's smart, and kind, and much more brave than he gives himself credit for, and why are you two looking at me like that?"

"Your ears are very red," Mikasa points out.

"The soup is hot!"

"You're eating rice."

"Mikasa, let him be," his father interrupts. "We're just a little surprised to hear you speak so highly of a Fox."

"Well, he's also a little brat of a princeling. But he's not...bad, for what he is."

"I understand." His father recommences narrating. "At first the whole story seemed impossible to believe, to me. Of course, the Prince was in terrible conditions, almost hysterical, and as much as the Commander insisted he had good reason to believe him, you...To think that my child..." 

Eren's father pulls his lips in a thin line.

"A part of me simply refused to believe, I imagine. But I myself have gone and observed the traces left in the hut where they found you, and of course, I visited the both of you in detail and..."

Lines of distress are spreading on his face as he speaks, recollecting the proofs he found, and Eren stops him gently.

"Don't. I know what I went through, no need to...talk about it. Not now."

"Right. Not now." His father smiles sadly. "Just for today, I can enjoy my son being back."

"Yes, I'm glad I'm back myself. There were moments there...I did my best to keep myself together, but...I sometimes doubted I was ever going to see you again."

"I don't want to even think about that!" Mikasa interjects, horrified.

"Me neither," Eren answers, with a little reassuring smile.

Another moment of silence passes over the gathered family.

"What about... _him_?" Eren asks, suddenly, and he's a bit surprised at how much his voice shakes, now - he managed to make it not waver even through the worse of the torture, but now that he's allowed to show weakness, it seems like he can't help it anymore.

His father's face contracts in a mask of cold rage.

"I assume you mean _that man_. Nothing to say. A perfectly executed and well-deserved Thousand Curses, as far as I can tell." His father hangs his head. "I have to say, I'm happy you learned how to perform it - but I would've been much happier if you never learned."

"But...what about his family? Allegiances?"

"Nothing. I think the Foxes have their suspicions about who gave him the means and instructions for such an elaborated plan, but the man himself...he seems to have sprouted from the ground. We can't even put a name to him."

Eren thinks about this.

Somehow, it makes sense. It's a relief, in fact - imagining a man like that with a family, with a loving wife and children, maybe, or a mother who still thought of him as her own sweet curly-haired baby...It makes Eren's head hurt. Like this, he's just something that Eren can hate on without regrets nor second thoughts.

That doesn't compensate him for the evil he's done, of course - but the knowledge he's suffering under the Thousand Curses can do that for now.

"The thing that angers me the most is that to that man, you were nothing more than a pawn, picked just because of your clan," his father says. "I have done so much to keep you out of clan politics, to keep a low profile, according to Carla's wishes...but it was all in vain."

"Father, you said it yourself - some good came together with the bad. Jean says they were coming to discuss an alliance, but nothing ever came out of these talks before. Maybe this could be the push we needed."

"This is my hope, as well as that of the Commander - for once, there's will for peace on both parts, and this adventure pushed us together, and the Foxes have promised me that together we will look for the culprit. But who knows. People are fickle, especially people of the Capital. Our clan came out with a clean name because the Prince himself is willing to vouch for us, now, but in future..."

"Then what we need to do is secure the strength of the alliance now, as much as possible, so that if new enemies of the clan arise in the future, we will be protected." 

"You seem very convinced, but there's still a lot of matters to discuss - generations of feuding can't be resolved by one talk around a table, no matter how friendly."

"Then we'll talk twice!"

"Eren..."

"If I can make one good thing happen out of this whole nightmare, I will, no matter what it takes."

His father throws one look to Mikasa before restarting to talk.

"If you are so determined, there's something that has been vented between me and the Commander..."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to tell him right now?" Mikasa asks.

"The Prince's entourage wants to move back to the Capital as soon as possible, and Eren needs time to ponder it in depth. But I _do_ want you to consider this seriously, with all the pros and cons, Eren, so of course, if you're too tired to listen now..."

"I'm alright," Eren answers. 

His head is actually spinning a little, but he's afraid the moment his mind is left wandering, it will immediately go back to _that place_ \- so it's better to give himself a little headache but have something else to focus on.

His father eyes him for a moment, but doesn't comment.

"I have a proposal from the Commander of the Imperial Guard," he says instead. "He's asking you to pledge your personal loyalty to the Prince and come back with him to the Capital."

"Seriously?"

His father nods.

"As far as I know, the Prince hasn't been consulted about it yet, but I see no reason why he should refuse. It goes without saying, both you and the Prince have to agree. It's not so strange as it might seem. As you probably know, it was an old use back in the days that the Prince would pick either his personal bodyguard or one of his wives in the clan whose alliance was the newest and the least stable, as a show of faith. The use was suspended after...you know the story."

"The Fox Marriage. The reason why we've been feuding with the Foxes for all these years," Eren says. He frowns. "But...You mean, the proposal is...to revive the old use? I should go...to the Capital? As...the Prince's bodyguard?"

"No, as his bride," Mikasa says, and while he's able to tell that's her own brand of deadpan humor, he knows his ears are going bright red.

Mikasa and his father exchange another look.

"Only if you want to. And not immediately, of course. You're not fully healthy yet," Mikasa says.

"Normally, I wouldn't even consider such a proposal, no matter how badly our clan needs such an alliance," his father says. "I have no interest in sending my son to be humiliated by a bunch of stuck-up nobles. At least because I know you personally would raise to every single bait and put yourself in trouble after trouble."

"Hey!"

"But...the Commander of the Imperial Guards himself made a point of promising that he'll take care you'll be treated as an equal of the Prince, since you'd spend most of your time with him anyway - which would do wonders for your education, by the way - maybe the prized Masters that the Imperial Court can afford will manage to make you sit still for more than an hour." 

"I am perfectly able to sit down an hour and I'm surely not going to the Capital to get snarled at by some Master courtesan who only knows how to dress foppily!"

"...foppily? Nevermind that - protest as much as you want, but it's the only kind of setting that can grant you courtesan manners."

"What if I don't want courtesan manners?"

"Eren, have you heard a word I've said? I've been trying to let you live a peaceful life, faraway from such silly complications, but it appears it's impossible - therefore the next best thing is for you to be ready to adapt yourself to the situation. You might need to behave like a courtesan in the future, to keep this alliance alive - and I can't teach you that. Only the Court can. And you shouldn't insult that education - the Prince you admire is a product of it, after all."

"He's the exception." 

"That might be. Consider yourself lucky that you'll get to spend most of your time with him, then, instead of some...foppily courtesan. And you will also have to train under the Commander of the Guards in order to acquire the best fighting skills possible, which I imagine would be more along your inclinations."

"That's all well and good, but...I don't know. I'm basically...asking the Prince to entrust his life to me."

"Just as much as you're entrusting your own to him. After all, if he takes you to the Capital with him, you'll survive in there only as long as you are in his good graces. You should ask yourself how much you can trust the Prince. He might be your friend at the moment, but we all know how Foxes are."

Eren bites his lip, his head aching a little more.

"You make it sound like I shouldn't go."

"I make it sound like the grave decision it is. Both our clans have much to gain from this reciprocal show of faith not ending in another bloodbath, so the possibility that something bad could happen to you is remote, but it exists. Still, we need somebody in the Capital to vouch for the fact that the Foxes are conducting their search for the culprit of this crime correctly. I don't trust them to not just pin it on the first poor commoner they can find and let the real culprit go free."

"But...they attempted on the life of the Prince!"

"Richness and power go a long way in making people willing to forgive you, in the Capital."

"Jean wouldn't allow it!"

His father raises an eyebrow.

"There are some people even above the Imperial Family. But if you have so much faith in him already, then you really should consider the idea of going with him. It's a chance that doesn't happen twice in a lifetime."

Eren is silent for a long moment, thoughts he himself can't fully decipher swirling in his head.

"I'm sorry to assault you with all of this so soon after your recovery," his father says, subdued, "but like I said, time is of the essence and I do expect you to think about this carefully. At any time you can refuse or accept without any need for you to explain your reasons. I won't fault you."

"I will need to...talk about him with this. With...the Prince. I don't know if he'd want me. I...probably am just the reminder of bad things, for him."

His father seems taken slightly aback.

"Of course, I didn't see it this way."

"But if he was alright with it, would you consider it?" Mikasa asks.

"Mikasa..." his father admonishes.

"What? It's a simple question. I don't ask if he would go, only if he would consider it, if it was the Prince asking." 

"I...I don't know."

"Then maybe we'd do better to start organizing my marriage to him instead. He's not my type, but if my brother says he's good..."

"If he asked me himself, out of his own free will and not because of any obligation, I'd consider it," Eren cuts her short, disturbed by the idea of Mikasa and Jean together. "He _is_ nice enough, for a Fox, but oh fuck you two would be a horrible match."

"And you and him aren't?"

Eren sputters and coughs rice all over his bed covers.

"I see," Mikasa says.

"There's nothing to see! Ugh, my head hurts..."

"Too many things at once. Lay down, Eren, I'll prepare you something."

"Told you you'd overwhelm him," Mikasa says.

But Eren doesn't feel overwhelmed.

Just terrified, and numb, and alive, and feeling that is more than enough for the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep on apologizing for making this universe this cruel, or for stopping the action with talk talk talk, but then I remember "oh wait, a lot of these people are probably reading the SNK manga".
> 
> Not that I'm as good a writer as Isayama but you get what I mean, probably.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spam is over, halleluja.
> 
> I don't know what to make of this chapter. Uh. ~~No warnings~~
> 
> WHAT THE FUCK DO I MEAN NO WARNINGS. BIG FAT WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF CANNIBALISM. OH MY GOD I'M SO SO SORRY I AM TERRIBLE. I AM JUST SUCH A TERRIBLE FUCKING PERSON, I'M SO GRATEFUL TO PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL POWERING THROUGH THIS FIC DESPITE HOW MUCH I SUCK.

The night air outside is cold, almost freezing. Eren's father wouldn't be happy about him being out in this weather, but he didn't _explicitly_ forbid him to go around the gardens at night, either.

And Eren can't sleep, plagued by nightmares, nor can he think clearly in the warmth of his room, his head a swirling mess. So he goes outside, the cutting wind greeting him, brimming with scents, fresh vegetation from the prairie to the East, ice-cold water from the brooks running down from the Northern mountains, and of course, the most overpowering one, the scent of decay, mud and moss from the Shinganshina marsh.

Just like a small spider, when it feels danger, fits itself in a tiny hole where its big enemies can't follow, the Spider clan retired to the Shinganshina marsh during the persecution - the center of their former territory, and the area where they first moved from to conquer. 

It's a treacherous land. The prairie and the marsch blend one into the other without a sensitive change to the distracted eye, mud that can swallow a human in minutes looks in everything just like solid ground; but Spiders know all of the hidden paths like it's a web they themselves spun. The air in the middle of the marsh is so thick with decay most animal lifeforms faint; but it's perfectly breathable for a Spider. 

It's also a beautiful land - as beautiful as it is cruel, Mikasa likes to say. The water from the mountains in spots doesn't mix with the mud perfectly (something about different balance of substances in the water, his father says), and forms tiny clean pools, like small silver mirrors, around which thickets of trees form, their roots so entwined they become a solid ground to walk on. Huge flowers grow in those places, thick, meaty petals in bright, impossible colors, their scent dazzling.

On the border to the East, there's the last Spider village, well protected by the marsh on two directions. Eren's childhood house is separated from the others, a little further inside the moor. That's a sign of distinction - people are willing to walk a distance in the treacherous marsh to reach it. His father is high ranking because of his job, and his mother was a noble. Eren wasn't kidding when he said that he could be at Jean's place if the Spiders were the dominant clan - he has cousins that could claim the same, but he's reasonably sure there aren't many, thought he's never given the idea actual consideration. Spiders don't need to decide on a definitive heir for the throne, Foxes do. He used to wonder how they figure out this sort of thing. It appears they just don't. Stupid, if you ask Eren.

He loves his land and his house. He loves kneeling in the mud with his father, learning the secrets of the herbs, he loves to help those who come to them, and he loves play-fighting with Mikasa, and Armin explaining to him the constellations when he comes to visit, as rare an event as it is.

He knows how lucky he is. He's living a nice life, quiet, comfortable, rich - a lucky life, especially if compared with the conditions Spiders lived in for the last century or so. 

But he's about to give all of it up. And he isn't even sure he can justify to himself why. 

There's this restlessness in him, it was always there with him like a good companion. He wants to fight for what he believes in, he wants a chance to right the wrongs of the past, he wants to carve a path for himself that isn't just about being his father's son, he wants to explore the world, he wants he wants he wants. 

This makes him sound greedy, or ambitious, but he honestly doesn't think it's that. At most, he's pushed by a desire for justice. The Foxes are a lying, lusty bunch, merchants at heart, not warriors, petty and short-sighted. Spiders are the ones who have in themselves the steel to forge an Emperor.

But it isn't even that, in the end. Maybe the best way to explain it is with an echo of something Armin used to tell him, about seeing the world, as wide and horrible and beautiful as it must be, one day, together, before his grandfather started taking him on his trips. 

Maybe he will meet Armin again? Everybody passes from the Capital sooner or later - it will be surely easier to meet him there than by remaining here to rot. 

He wonders if Armin would like Jean. Jean strikes him as the type that can be mean, and Armin was a little delicate the last time he saw him, but he probably has matured a lot, and Jean...

He's not sure he wants to think about Jean. Almost all of his thoughts of him are drenched in blood and pain and tears. And even those that aren't, the memory of his shiny eyes, of his little pointy smiles and smug expression and laughter...even those, they make his chest constrict in a way that he doesn't understand and doesn't like at all.

But he has to think about Jean. Jean - the Prince, Eren really should aquaint himself with the idea - is the one big question mark left, the reason why he can't still make himself take the leap of faith. Because if Jean doesn't want him around anymore, or worse, if he's willing to keep him around only if Eren tolerates being treated like a servant...what face will Jean make when they see each other again? How will he look? How will Eren feel? Because he isn't sure about that, either. 

Like on a signal, he raises his eyes and sees it - the little light on in the room that Eren knows his family reserves for respected guests.

He knows Jean is surrounded by his guards, but he supposes that there aren't any in his room...He could easily climb up there, and then he'll know, either way.

Maybe it's not Jean, maybe it's somebody in his following who would kill him for attempting to intrude in the Prince's chamber with unclear intentions.

And maybe it's Jean.

He climbs up with eased confidence and is surprised to see the window is open, despite the cutting air outside. But, yeah, Foxes like the open air. He peeks in just enough to get a good look.

Jean is awake, reading, his eyes squinting a little in the light of the candle. He looks healthier, slightly less consumed by hunger and fear, but he's still pale and thin. He's all in white - his plain clothes and his skin disappear against the white sheets, together with the fluffy white of his long tail, that he's letting hang around, now, like Eren does with his markings, which goes a little against what Eren knows - he thought Foxes made a point of hiding all signs of being non-human. 

His fingers look so thin they're almost transparent when he brings one hand up to turn the page. His movements are slow, he rests against the fluffed up cushions in this languid, elegant way that reminds Eren a little of a cat stretching next to the fire - or a Fox curled in its den, he supposes, but he never saw that. It's the same kind of pose, relaxed but composed, and Eren wonders if he had to teach himself to rest in his bed like that, if it's something he's putting up for the benefit of any sudden visitor, or if Jean is one of those people who just effortlessly look like they're posing for a portrait even when they're shitting in a field.

Eren is suddenly extremely conscious of the way his skin is tan with being outside all day, even in the middle of autumn, of his knotted hair and broad, ruined hands. He never worried about those things, and he calls himself an idiot for starting now, but he can't help himself.

Yeah, he's seen him, so he can go back, now, right? Go and hide in the garden pond until Jean is Emperor and doesn't have time to pretend to be his friend anymore. That would solve things.

"Who's there?"

Eren remains perfectly still, regretting his own actions. He should have requested an official audience, give Jean a chance to reject him politely with an excuse sent via a servant, instead of angrily and straight to his face.

Jean lets his eyes fall back on his reading again, smoothly faking ease.

"My guards are within shouting distance, but I'm..."

He pulls his head up with a sudden movement, his eyes wide and the top of his cheekbones reddening.

"Eren?" he asks, his voice trembling a little. "Eren. I recognize your scent. Come on, show yourself."

Eren steps further inside the room, into the circle of candlelight, slowly, as to not spook him further.

"I couldn't sleep so I went to take a walk in the garden and I saw your light was on, and I...sorry."

"No, don't apologize." Jean smiles mildly. "I'm just...a little jumpy. You should have come to visit during the day, though."

"Yeah, well...Maybe I can come back tomorrow..." Eren makes to move back towards the window.

"No, don't go!" Jean's colors are definitely returning to his face, now. He turns to the side, embarrassed by how much emotion he's displaying. "I'm...It's so boring having to sit here without nothing to do..."

There's a brief silence, then Jean offers Eren the corner of his bed with an ample gesture, moving his tail away, a bit irritated, and Eren accepts to sit down after a slight hesitation.

"Tell me. How have you been these last few days?" Jean says, his tone pleasant, rehearsed.

Eren feels like this is the opening for the kind of civil, meaningless conversation people in the Capital have. This makes him a little angry. They're beyond such shit, aren't they?

"Spoiled rotten and bored out of my skull," he answers earnestly, even forcefully, just to make it clear he's not going to pretend him and Jean are strangers.

Jean smiles wide, then, relaxing visibly, and Eren realizes this was the reaction he was hoping for.

"Well, at least they let you...they _do_ let you walk around alone, right?"

Eren nods.

"I know better than compromise my recovery, don't worry."

Jean puts the book away with an apparently nonchalant gesture, but Eren is hyper-aware of how much he's putting up a front, of how good he is at it - he wonders how many times he had to do this, pretend everything was fine when he wasn't.

"Lucky you! All I can do is sit here and wait for somebody to come visit me. It's so boring!"

"I know what you mean, but if father says you need rest..."

"I don't think I'm getting proper rest, though. I can't sleep, I'm so agitated, and when I do manage to sleep I'm...I...I get such terrible nightmares, Eren." Jean frowns slightly and looks at a spot on the ground, his hands curling in the sheets as if he's trying to stop them from trembling. "It's like I'm back there with the man, only this time you're not there, and there's no hope for me, and I..."

"Hey," Eren interrupts him before he can talk himself into a panic. "My father has sleeping potions, right? It helps with me, thought not as much as I wish it would - Spiders are resistant to that kind of thing - but with you..."

"I don't like taking that medicine. It makes me fall into this deep sleep and it reminds me of...passing out, not knowing if I was going to wake up at all, or if you...were still going to be there, and at the same time thinking that dying would be..." Jean takes a deep breath, but his voice shakes, and tiny tears form in the corners of his eyes. "...a r-relief for both of us..."

"Again with that bullshit, Jean?"

He should probably use better language, or correct himself to _Your Majesty_ or something, but he keeps on forgetting, and, if he's honest, a part of him feels vaguely repulsed by the idea of using formalities with Jean. 

The man liked to mock him with his title, he suddenly remembers. The onslaught of memories hits him like a cold shower, so he just keeps his eyes on Jean, the way his shoulders have gone stiff as he fights back his own personal minor flashback. Somehow, watching him makes him feel more in control, makes it easier to breath and not think.

"Ugh, I'm still being a burden, isn't it?" Jean breaks the silence suddenly. "Going off on you like that...Most of the time I do fine, but sometimes it just comes up all at the same time and I don't know what to do with myself."

Eren snorts. 

"Yeah, do you think I have forgotten it all?"

"But you keep yourself calm, while I..."

His eyes fall to the ground. 

"...I wish you didn't come, tonight."

It's such a non-sequitur Eren doesn't really understand for a long moment, and when he does, his stomach sinks, but why? He has been steering himself for this reaction since he woke up.

It still stings. 

He makes to stand up. He wants is to be out of here, immediately, before his disappointment can show on his face.

"What are you doing?" Jean asks, surprised.

"Going. Since you don't want me here."

"What? No, I do want...I'm happy you're here!" Jean says, and promptly blushes bright red. "I've been wanting to call up on you since the day I woke up, but..."

Eren tries to calm down the warmth that is spreading in his chest and sits back down again.

"But?"

"It's...stupid. It's...just...I wanted to..." Jean sighs. "...be a little more...healed beforing showing myself to you. Less of a mess. Show you that I could be strong, too."

"You are strong. I've seen you be strong already."

"No, you've seen me desperate." His expression is filled with distaste and sadness. "Strong doesn't wish for death as a way out. Strong does what's right and noble even when stuck in a hole in the ground, bleeding on the brink of survival, with no way out in sight and nobody as a witness, except a useless little _princeling_ who..." He stops himself, throws him a quick sidelong glance. "Strong is what _you_ are," he adds, in a voice so low Eren almost doesn't hear him.

Eren can feel his ears go red. This is becoming a little bit too frequent an occurence. Since when he's so easily flustered?

But Jean doesn't seem to notice, all focused on the effort of reigning himself in. Eren almost wants to tell him something like _you can cry with me, you already did, remember?_ but he knows the words will sound stupid the moment they leave his mouth.

Jean has to hide his tears, just like he himself is fighting against the trembling in his hands, has to pretend even in front of father and Mikasa - not because they will think any less of him, but because he himself would, with his stubborn pride. Him and the Prince do have something in common, after all. And this makes all the ways they're different stand out even more, what exactly Jean has that Eren never will.

"You saved my life. You...what you did for me..." he says, on impulse. Reliving that memory probably isn't good for Jean, but he needs to know that...he needs to hear how much Eren...he needs to stop berating himself and Eren doesn't know what else to say.

Jean looks at him with wide, haunted eyes for a long moment, before sighing again, his demenour crumbling down.

"It was the last resort of a coward."

"Shut up!" 

Jean is so surprised by his tone he raises his eyes to look at him.

"Don't...don't. Just...don't diminish what you did for me, alright?" Eren goes on, fighting to find his words. "I...all I could think of while it happened was that I was so grateful, that I wasn't worth of a sacrifice like that," he finally admits. 

"You are worth...you...helped me too and saved me and I'll be dead without you," Jean says in a fast breath.

"And so would I, and I...you...you...If our places had been switched, I would have let you die rather than..." he lets the phrase finish into nothing, because if there's one thing he doesn't want to do _ever_ is being reminded of the details of what happened, and he guesses this is true for Jean, too.

Jean's face is a mix of complex emotions, all covered up and muted - Eren now really can't guess what he's thinking, but there's something about the severity of his expression that makes it hard to behold, and so Eren lets his eyes fall on his thin hands, knuckles going blue with the way his fingers are tightening on the sheet.

"It would have been the right thing to do, for the dignity of a Prince," Jean says, in the end. "If it was just my own life at stake..."

"It would have been the _stupid_ thing to do, Jean. You saw a chance for survival and seized it. It was brave. Heroic, even."

Jean's smile is again sad. "That word must mean something really different around these parts."

"If you don't stop it, I swear I'm slapping you!"

Jean looks at him, all surprise again.

"You're a generous soul, but other people..."

"Fuck other people, they weren't there! I was there and I know what I saw. Anybody who would be the kind to judge you for - I won't let anybody talk shit about you, alright? Not even _you_. And, man, you want heroic?" Eren expands, on a roll. "The way you fucking exploded those chains there at the end...it was like, wow. Fireworks."

Jean blushes. 

"It was nothing."

"It was amazing! You were fucking glowing, like...like a mega firefly or something!"

Jean raises an eyebrow, even through his embarrassment.

"A mega firefly?"

Eren nods enthusiastically, and Jean laughs.

He turns more towards him, relaxing. The tip of his tail starts to distractingly wave in the air. Is there a pattern in that, like what dogs do? Like, does this mean Jean is interested in something? That would be cute. No. Interesting.

"You know, I didn't get a good look at your Other Face."

"Too bad."

"Show me."

"Nah."

"Oh, come on, why not?"

"Because..." _you'd think I look creepy and ugly, everybody does_ "...I don't feel like it."

"That's so unfair! You stared at leisure while I was turned!"

"I wasn't _staring_!"

"Shut up, you were practically hypnotyzed!"

"It was the first time I saw a Fox!"

Jean makes a little sly smile.

"Show me your creepy Spider demon face, come on. I'll let you not-stare at my Fox face for as long as you want."

Eren bites his lip. He knows it's ridicolous, but he really is feeling a bit self-conscious of his Other Face. 

But then again, he kind of really wants to see Jean's Other Face again, and who knows when he'll get another chance.

So, he nods, and closes his eyes, before he changes his mind. The metamorphosis, once you've learned to master it, is as easy as changing your clothes - just more tiresome, especially if you try to make it happen too fast, so Eren doesn't - he takes a little bit of time.

He feels the Spider legs come out of his back, where the sleeves for them are ready, feels his fangs poke at his tongue and his other pair of eye slit open close to his temples. He waits for a long moment before opening his eyes, wondering if he'll open them to Jean recoiling in fear, or, worse, unchanged, cruelly smiling at his credulity.

But when he does, Jean isn't doing any of that. He's staying exactly where he was, his eyes wide in surprise, only he's...

He's the little Fox demon he remembers, the hair now the same white shade of his fluffy tail, the extra fox ears peeking from it, the little red marks on the corners of his mouth, giving him a perennial ironic smile. But Eren only now, with calm, notices a lot of other little details, drinks them in - his fur isn't just white, but it has just a touch of a orange-brown color, getting more intense on the tips, similar to white-hot metal, and glowing with almost the same energy. He has small red marks at the corners of his eyes, too, almost like the way girls paint theirs to make them look prettier, and long claws and pointy canines that peek out of his mouth even when it's closed.

He swallows. He's beginning to think he should ask to be taken to the clan witch to test him for a thrall, because he really can't get enough of looking at him. Is it normal for Fox males to look so pretty? Is it normal for Spider males to notice it? 

Well, it's right in front of his eyes, so Eren sees it - it doesn't mean a thing. Sun rises in the East, cats like tuna, Jean is pretty. It's a fact and Eren doesn't need to justify himself noticing it to anybody. He's just keenly observant, and - are his ears _twitching_? How wrong would it be, etiquette-wise, to start scratching behind them? Probably very wrong. Probably "death penalty for you and your family" wrong.

"You really do have four eyes!" Jean says, smiling, like this is the most brilliant thing that ever happened to him. 

He leans towards Eren.

"Can I?" he asks, rising a hand.

Eren nods, trying to muster all the dignity he can. Demon face is considered dressing up, after all. 

He thought Jean was curious about his eyes, but instead he starts with the Spider legs, kindly caressing one of them. Eren shivers a little, regretting giving him permission to touch, but not really knowing how to take it back.

"Hey, it's soft! It looks coarse, but it's soft like a kitten...Does it hurt?" Jean asks.

"No, it's..don't do that," Eren mutters, wondering if his Other Face can blush. "Like, the whole softly touching thing. Don't do it."

Jean makes a 'oh' of surprise and pulls his hand back.

"Sorry."

"No, you didn't know. We use those to prod around, not to walk. They're more like...sensory organs, so they're...yeah."

Jean nods, to show he understands - he's remarkably unphased. He's probably used to meeting weirder, down in the Capital, and the thought is rather reassuring. 

Jean presses the tip of one of those pointy nails, delicately, along the line of his cheekbone, and there's a weird moment in which he tries to look into his normal eyes and his demon ones at the same time. "Yeah, they're the iron-blue color your other ones used to be. Will they switch back?"

"Maybe. Nobody is really sure what's going on with my eyes - it's rare for Spiders to have the two pairs of two different colors. Most just have eyes all the same color."

"Do they do anything?"

"I can see a little more around when they're open. And I can judge distance better - that's the use we make of them most of the time, to adjust for distance when we're climbing or jumping. Especially when we're building webs."

"Wow, you can build webs?"

"You didn't know that?"

Jean shakes his head, slowly, still looking utterly fascinated. "I thought the only connection you still had with webs where these," he says, gesturing to the black web-like markings that climb up all along Eren's right side - from his neck to his shoulder, along his arm, down his hip and leg almost to his foot. 

"By the way, how do those work? The..tattoos, I mean - are those tattoos? Your father doesn't have any, and..."

"They're natural markings like your red ones. My father hides them. I don't. I see no reason why."

Jean smiles kindly.

"You like being a Spider, don't you?"

"What's not to like?" Then, in a quieter whisper, "don't you like being a Fox?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes I don't." 

"You don't...? But you're so..." and he stops himself just short of mentioning how pretty he finds him. Fuck, why is he being so _stupid_.

Jean blinks.

"I'm...?"

"I, uh. Sorry. I mean. Uh." Eren is raking his brain to find something to say to dispel his embarrassment. "You have two pairs of ears," he falls on, when he notices the Fox ears twitch again. "Do they make you hear better?"

Jean shrugs. 

"Yeah. I also can direct them to follow a noise, I guess. Where do they come from? The webs, I mean. The real ones."

"From my mouth. Same place my venom comes from. I have to push my fangs out, just like when I poison somebody with my bite."

"Ugh, that's so gross! Show me."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because it's gross? Don't be annoying, I'm indulging you enough."

"But I want to see!"

Eren licks his lips.

"Can I touch your tail?"

Jean blinks again.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why would you _want_ to?"

"You touched my legs."

"I stopped touching them when you told me they were sensitive!"

Eren's eyes widen in sudden understanding - he remembers something he read somewhere, once.

"The ears and tail are sensitive, right? You like having them stroked a lot. And you let only people you trust do it."

"It helps us...come up with ideas and such, but it's also...well, it's just really really nice," Jean admits, his expression a little embarrassed. "Like, nice enough to make a Fox a little...weak. Especially the tail, having it petted kinda makes you...space out, I guess."

"So I can't do it?"

Jean seems surprised at his disappointment. Eren is surprised he's surprised - when one has a tail so fluffy one should be used to the idea of people wanting to pet it. Well, maybe fluffy tails are commonplace between Foxes, but he can sort of guess that Jean's must be especially pretty, because Jean is especially pretty.

No, wait. He just meant that the few other Fox tails he's seen (from afar) didn't seem as fluffy from what he could tell. Yeah. That's what he meant.

"Not...yet...I suppose. Maybe later on? If you come to the Capital with me and become my bodyguard, I will have to trust you."

"Intriguing Fox. Tryin' to trick me, eh?"

"But you're too smart for it." Jean leans back a little. "Next time you're going to show me the web, eh?"

"Ugh, why?"

"I'm just curious. It's...you look like nothing I've ever seen. I've seen some creepy demons and some horrible ones, but you...you look so damn...brutal."

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry for offending your precious eyes with my ugly appearance. We're a warrior clan, we're supposed to look scary. Not everybody can look as pretty as you."

He was aiming for 'rough and uncaring', but he must have failed short, because a sly smile spreads on Jean's face, a smirk within the smirk the marks draw on his face, making his eyes turn into small slits inside the other markings.

And then he realizes with sinking horror he finally went and blurted out the P word. How the hell did he end up saying something like that to a Fox? To the Prince? After all the shit they've been through, too. Fuck, he really should get himself checked for a thrall. 

"You think I'm _pretty_?"

"What? I...that's not what I said!"

"That's literally what you said, thought."

Eren covers his face with his hands.

"Oh, fuck. Can't you write it off as sleep deprivation?"

"I don't want to, though. Stop making that embarrassed expression, it doesn't suit your demon face."

"I'm not...ugh. I just meant you look pretty compared to my ugly face, after all."

"You're not ugly."

Eren blinks. No, he's pretty sure he's ugly as fuck.

"You said..."

"I didn't say it looked ugly," Jean explains, not unkindly. "I said it looks _brutal_. As in. Powerful. Not gracious. They say the Spiders are the oldest clan, right? That you've been around from since before the humans. It shows in your appearance. You look like something...ancient. Unfamiliar. I'd say it has its own beauty, but it's also the kind of face a stranger wouldn't trust."

"Well, that's unreasonable. It's all show, you know. We're lambs. I'm reasonably sure my clan hasn't eaten a human in ten...six...about three years. Maybe."

Jean's smile falls, and starts looking at him like he's...well, like he just confessed to cannibalism. Which he didn't. Demons aren't humans, no matter how much Foxes like to pretend they are.

" _Three years_?"

"We haven't checked on Aunt Mabel in a while, but last I heard she still had that stomach bug, so, yeah, reasonably sure."

And then, Jean does something unexpected - he chuckles.

"Oh, Eren, I really shouldn't be laughing about this but _fuck_. Three years without killing humans is some kind of record for you?"

"Wait, who-oh, who said anything about _killing_? I thought you were talking about _eating_!"

"Well, does your clan just kills humans for shit and giggles every once in a while?"

"That would be old Aunt Cathrine, but she's been dead for years now. A bit touched in the head, poor woman. No, I mean...like...you know where babies come from, right?"

Jean raises an eyebrow.

"...Let's go with some order about this. Yeah, I know where baby _Foxes_ come from. It doesn't involve murder."

"You do it just the sex way, then?"

"It...seems to work fine for us?"

"Yeah, no, that's the slow way. You can have like two babies every six months in that way, tops."

"Nine, mr. future doctor, but do go on."

"And Spiders have troubles reproducing like that anyway. Low fertility rate, and we have sort of a...fucked up male-to-female ratio. My family is the exception - usually Spider families have like six women for every man. So every once in a while, a mommy Spider starts looking for a suitable male human host for a eggsac, and...well, she rips off the...and opens his…and uses her web to..." 

Eren tries to gesticulate expressively, but on the other hand, the more he looks at Jean's face the less he wants to explain the details of it. 

"Let's say the miracle of life happens," he finishes off. 

"With murder." 

"Before you even start, the tradition asks for humans that nobody will miss and that the villages around have pointed out to us. Murderers, rapists, the occasional over-zealous Empire officer. Maybe I shouldn't have told you that last one."

"Oh, nobody particularly likes a bureaucrat, not even bureaucrats, rest assured."

Jean is still taken aback, but he nods, seemlingly slowly regaining his bearings. 

"That's what they say about Spiders, right? That they're strict but just and the villages around still send their criminals to you to be punished, when the Empire is slow on acting," he adds, and it's obvious he's trying to spin the thing in a way that makes Eren look good.

Eren doesn't give a damn about looking good, especially to _humans_ \- but Jean's education has probably been made of this, after all. The Prince needs to be able to talk respectfully even to people whose uses he finds disgusting, if he wants to handle an Empire as diverse as theirs.

Which means that is probably what he's doing. Being polite to Eren as he privately thinks he's a monster.

"I...never gave the matter much thought, but I imagine it sounds shocking to you," he says.

Jean shrughs.

"I knew Spiders did that. I just...never connected the dots, I guess, that you were within the lot who...are you?"

"What?"

"Did you ever eat a human?"

Eren grimaces.

Jean blinks.

"Ah."

"Well, all demon clans ate them in the past," Eren tries. "We just kept the tradition alive?"

"We never did."

Eren blinks. He is struck by the thought that, were their roles reversed, he would already be going into a rant on how all Spiders are monsters, and for the first time in his life he thinks it's a good thing the role of Prince fell on Jean's lot instead of his own.

"Foxes never ate humans?"

"Nope. It was just the occasional robbery, and disguising as one to deflower attractive young men. For Foxes killing humans is as taboo as killing other Foxes, I want to say, especially now that we're trying to establish a tradition of collaboration." 

"Collaboration? You keep humans?"

"We _employ_ them."

"As what? Emergency food?"

"Eren, oh god, those kind of jokes are _not_ good in the Capital," Jean says even as he snickers. "Much better at reading and at using technology, and they're the only ones who manage certain kinds of magic, and...well, there's a lot of them everywhere. Also some of them are great fighters, learning how to compensate for their weaker bodies with interesting tecniques. The Captain of the Palace Guards, Levi, is one of them. He's a real master in his style. He's supposed to be the one who will be supervising your bodyguard training, by the way - I would try to keep in his good graces if I were you, he could teach you a lot if he liked you. So avoid mentioning the particulars of your diet."

"I thought humans didn't take sides."

"They don't, really - their clan organization isn't that tight, it's basically single individuals that decide to employ themselves with us. They trust us over the other demon clans because...well, yeah, most other demon clans liked to eat them back in the days and some still do, while for a Fox humans are equals, not food."

"Lemme get this straight. Humans are equals, but Spiders are game?" 

Jean winces.

"Spiders aren't game right now, either. Nobody is. We want to keep the peace."

"But you massacred us like it was going out of fashion for a century."

"Eren..."

"What? It's true."

"Well, you massacred us, too."

"We massacred everybody who got in our way. We didn't make precious moral distinctions between who's equal and who isn't."

"And that makes it better?"

"It makes it fair. And we wouldn't have chased you down to the ends of earth the way you..."

"Yeah, you would have let us go with a pat on the back, isn't it? Fuck you, that's a lie and you know it."

"You know shit-all about Spiders!"

"While you're the expert on Foxes, isn't it? Ugh, screw this. If you're just here to yell at me, you can get out of my fucking room."

"This is my house!"

"Perfect, then you can show yourself out!"

"You are a..."

Jean presses a hand on Eren's mouth. He turns sharply towards the door, and waits a moment.

Eren can't hear anything, but he trusts that Jean did. He wonders in how much trouble will they be if they're caught. The turn of the conversation reminded him that there's still bad blood between their clans - if the guards do burst in, only Jean's word is standing between him and a bloody death. 

He doesn't doubt Jean, but he's beginning to wonder if he should. Or if Jean should doubt him. 

Jean frowns and collects his legs against his chest, wraps his arms around them. His tail is doing tiny quirks back and forth, and it's most definitely expressive.

Eren looks at it, calming himself down.

Jean sighs.

"Why did we even took on this topic? We were doing so well..."

"If we were the types to keep on tiptoeing around stuff to avoid hurting each other's feelings we wouldn't be a very good match for friends," Eren says, trying to not emphasize the word _friends_ too much but still throwing it out there to be tried on for size.

"...what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"That I'd rather yell than keep silent and pretend everything is alright."

Jean chews on his lips, considering.

"So that's why you tried to start an argument?"

"I actually...I honestly don't get what's there to argue? I just want to know," Eren's voice drops to a whisper. "Why did you single out Spiders?"

Jean's voice has gone lower, too.

"We were just trying to seize the power. Because we didn't like how you used it, I guess. We used to get told...we still do. We get told you were tyrannical and bloodthirsty..."

"We were strict but just!"

"I said that's what we get told, not what's right! Why, does everything you hear about Foxes around these parts is true?"

Eren opens his mouth to retort and finds that he can't. Jean is right - he has such a hard time reconciling what he has heard about Foxes with what he knows of Jean.

"But we tried to ally with you," he says instead. "To make you join the gentry - and then you killed the Pale Bride!"

"What? _Your_ Pale Bride killed the Red Groom! She kissed him, told him he was the most beautiful, and _melted his fucking face off_!"

"It was self-defense! You attacked first! Her heart was bleeding as she did it!"

"That's not how the Spider Marriage story gets told around my parts."

"The _what_? It's called the _Fox_ Marriage!"

Jean pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Look, we've obviously each been told the version of the story that makes our own clan look better, and who knows what really happened, so we might as well drop it."

"Well, I know that my version is obviously true since Spiders don't lie while we all know Foxes are liars."

Jean rolls his eyes.

"Yes. Whatever you say."

"Plus, Marriage aside, we were the old Emperors, and you came and took the title from us forcefully. You really can't spin that in a way that looks good," Eren points out, calming down a little.

Jean shrughs.

"I'll concede your point but also say this - at the time, it seemed like a good idea. We were...idealistic, you could say. We imagined ourselves as defenders of the weak against the strong, demonic Spiders." Jean raises a placating hand before Eren can start yelling again. "We're demons, too, I know, but I guess we imagined ourselves to be the lesser of two evils. At least that's how I understood it."

"That is such bullshit."

"It's just old folklore, it doesn't have to make sense."

"It's still fucking bullshit."

"Urgh. Why are you being such a dick? I'm trying to be conciliating, here!"

"Don't be! I don't want you to be conciliating, alright? I want you to yell and be angry if you find reason to be angry. That's how friends behave with each other, not pretending they're fine when they aren't, and...and if I can't be your friend, if I have to be just a polite aquaintance, then I'd rather forget I've ever met you, so just tell me now and I'll leave you alone," Eren spits out, unable to stop himself now that he's found to chance to say what's close to his heart.

Jean looks at him for a long moment, silent, completely taken aback. Then, his expression turns serious.

"I...I want to be your friend," he says, and Eren feels his heart go _thump-thump-thump_ in a way that is a little ridicolous, frankly, for something so small and simple. "I...it's been so long since I had any real friends. Friends of the kind you speak of, I mean, friends you don't have to play nice with. I might have forgotten how to do it. And...and you say you don't want to be my friend if we can't be like that, but I say, if we have to talk via letters we'll never be. Even if you come visit...that's why I proposed the bodyguard thing," he finishes hastily. "It's the only way to make sure we can meet face to face as much as we want. And I know you'll be loyal, and honest, much more than my other supposed friends."

Eren's ears are on fire.

"I...I..."

"You don't have to answer now, but..."

"I'll come."

Jean's eyes widen.

"You..."

"Yes. I'll come."

"Eren. Don't take this lightly. We'll be walking into danger, even greater than the one we were in before," Jean says. "If you remain here, my enemies will probably leave you be. But if you follow me, you'll be as much of a target as me - even more, probably, since you won't have the protection I'm granted. And...I can't promise you that what happened before won't happen again. I can't even promise you that your efforts will be recognized, or that you'll obtain something for your clan. Hell, I can't even fucking promise you'll make it back alive."

"Then, I'll be careful. I'll learn how to fight from that Levi guy, and I will regrow everything I get cut off and spit poison in the face of anything that comes in between us, and one day you'll sit the throne, and nobody will dare question it."

Outside, Eren can hear the birds chirping. It will be dawn soon, probably a foggy, rigid dawn, making the marsh shine white and silver and pale yellow. He'll miss those dawns, probably, a little, but Jean's expression of surprise is slowly turning into a smile, and Eren will see the world, and his heart is thumping a little still, but he'll manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do lurve the setting of this fic. I just wish it had popped out in the head of a person who isn't also an idiot.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some more banter, maybe a little short, but also finally things get going.

Eren sneaked out later on with promises of coming to visit again the night after.

"If you pass through official channels, my uncle could be enough of a dick to forbid you, or have Levi sit there staring at us the whole damn time, and fuck that noise," Jean explains. "Climb up to me, instead. I'll always have the window open."

"Oh, fair princess, yes, I'll climb to your window! But you'll need to grow out your hair a little."

Jean punched him lightly in the shoulder at that, and Eren bursted into giggly laughter.

But the silence was heavy when Eren sneaked in the night after, Jean looking somewhat more sombre, and Eren, for a long moment, didn't know what to say, until he noticed Jean's tail. It's still out, even if tonight they aren't showing off their Other Face.

"You don't cover your tail up anymore."

"Hmn? Oh, yeah. It's really hard to do that - keep it hidden, I mean. We can't even _really_ hide it, just disguise it."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I had to keep a strain on myself to keep it hidden while we were...in there."

Jean always has that little frown when he talks about being _in there_. Jean's presence is still having a calming effect on Eren, and Eren hopes he has the same effect on Jean - he didn't have the same violent reaction he had yesterday, which is a good thing.

"Oh, you mean that small throw of fur was..."

"The disguise for my tail, yeah."

"I thought it had something weird about it, the way it kept on appearing and disappearing. But, then...why did you do it? Hide your tail, I mean. It must have been costly, considering...everything else."

"I heard...stories. Some humans...cut off our tails. As a trophy, or...I thought if I kept it disguised at least..."

"No, I...I understand. It would have sucked if he took your tail. It's so cute."

Jean laughs.

"Cute?"

"Shut up, I just...actually I meant to ask," Eren says. "Your...Other Face. Does it give off a thrall or something?"

"Actually, yeah, a little, but it's not strong unless I do it on purpose, and Spiders are supposed to be halfway immune to that sort of thing."

"And you're not...doing it on purpose?"

"Why should I?"

"Yeah, of course, you have no reason," Eren says, turning his head to the side and coughing.

"...Is my human face that ugly, that you think it impossible you could like me without a thrall?" Jean asks, trying to sound like he's joking.

"Nah, your human face is...well, you're...it's not bad looking, alright, it's just...I'm usually not this easily flustered, so I was wondering if you were doing something, but if you say you aren't, I'll accept it," he finishes hastily, firmly fixating his eyes on the ground, his ears on fire.

Jean makes a little surprised noise.

"Flustered?"

Eren levels a vaguely annoyed look at him, even if he's still drowning in embarrassment. "Don't pretend you haven't noticed - and if you haven't, then as a master of thralls you're worth nothing."

Jean laughs.

"Yeah, I did notice, but I figured you were just shy, not that it was me especially making you flustered."

"What? That's not what I said!"

"But I don't mind it's me. I might like making you flustered, in fact," Jean adds with a little laugh, blushing a little himself even as he feigns nonchalance. 

Eren hides his face in his hands.

"Oh, fuck, just...can we stop talking about this? The word _flustered_ has lost all meaning to me." 

" _You_ brought it up, but whatever. What else would you like to talk about?"

Eren looks around, at a loss, until he notices the way Jean's tail is describing a big happy arch in the air - at least Eren reads it as a big happy arch, but who knows.

"Does your tail always wag around like that? Like a dog's?"

Jean's expression immediately morphs into one of pinched anger. Of all the things Eren tends to say to Jean, that's what gets to him? He's so weird.

"It's not like a dog! It just moves around when I talk. Like some people talk with their hands, you know?"

"Yeah, so like a dog, then," Eren says, doing a poor job of concealing his amusement at Jean's offense.

"It's nothing like a dog! Stop saying that! I'm calling uncle and kicking you out if you say that again."

"Oooh, even! This is still my house, you know."

"Uncle wouldn't care. Uncle would just kick you out, even if I didn't ask him to."

"Why, thought. Doesn't he want you to keep contact with your friends?"

"No." Jean lands dramatically on the cushions behind his back and throws an arm over his forehead. "I'm reasonably sure he just wants me to languish in loneliness and boredom and sadness forever."

Eren fights the urge to grin at Jean's dejected expression.

"It can't be that bad."

Jean sits up again.

"Oh, but it can! He's decided he's going to making me pay the price of this disaster, instead of choosing better recruits!"

"Better...recruits?"

"The... _that man_ corrupted a guard in order to be admitted in my presence, and then drugged us both via a vial that he broke on the ground before kidnapping me." 

"He...But, wait, you have a lead, then! Do you know which guard was it? Have they been interrogated?"

Jean shakes his head sadly.

"She...the guard...ran to the Commander and confessed the moment she was able to move again. She was swearing up and down she didn't know _him_ and had no idea _he_ wanted to hurt me. _He_ apparently presented himself as an avid supporter of the Imperial Family eager to meet the Prince, and she wanted to earn some extra money, that's all."

"And that's her line! You believe her?"

"It's late to ask. After three days of looking for me, when they were starting to lose hope...she killed herself."

Eren blinks.

"Wow. Is...are the punishments you dish out so terrible that one would prefer death?"

"They can be, but uncle was inclined to believe her, and we weren't able to find other proofs of misbehavior or bad allegiances in her past, so she would have probably gotten off comparably lightly."

"Really! And then I'm not admitted to your presence! That how your uncle protects you?"

Jean shrugs.

"In general, he does an excellent job. And he wasn't wrong in assessing that she was a decent person at heart - according to what she wrote in her letter, she was wrecked by guilt and shame to the point of being unable to bear living on."

"As she should be, honestly."

Jean looks at him pointedly.

"She misjudged a person and was greedy. Do you think she deserved death for that?"

"Wait, you don't? But she's the reason why you suffered so much!"

"She's not _the_ reason, she's one of the causes, but in the grand scheme of things...eh, had she refused, that person would have found another way to get at me. What's with that smile?" he adds, suspicious.

"Nothing, it's just...You are...very generous," Eren says, suppressing the urge to smile even wider.

"You think I'm weak, don't you?" Jean says, blushing red in anger.

"Yes," Eren admits. "But I also think it comes with having a generous heart," he adds quickly.

Jean flushes even harder, maybe some embarrassment mixing in with his anger, and pulls up his nose, all haughty.

"I'm not being generous, I'm being logical. Excessive retribution for minor misbehaviors, even when they have cruel consequences, is the fastest way to get your servants to poison your food. I have to depend on these people to survive, and they will be better at protecting me if I'm nice to them." 

"They shouldn't protect you because they like you. They should protect you because the Emperor told them so."

"I didn't say...I know that! I just think...I think the Emperor has more of a duty to be forgiving and generous than anybody. I don't think we should go around punishing people for minor fouls when we ourselves are not immune from error. We are all just men, us and our subjects. What would happen were our places switched?"

"But your places aren't switched. _You_ are the one who is tasked with the harsh decisions, because you are the one on which the destiny of the country rests upon, and your life is more important than theirs. At least those who have obviously wronged you should be made an example of. Who tells you they would be able to show you the same good heart? Who tells you that the same servants that you're being generous to won't be the ones stabbing you in the back tomorrow, because they think you're too soft to protect yourself?"

"Hey!"

"I'm sorry, alright? But this is what I think. And yeah, an Emperor is generous - with the right people. No man is a perfect judge of right and wrong - but the Emperor should be the closest thing to one. He might be just another man, but that's not what his subjects should think! They should think him closer to a God, unerring and merciless when needed."

"That's just ridiculous superstitious. What good does it make to have your people live in awe of you? Then what happens is that they go to the local clans when they have a grievance instead of going to the Emperor, and those clans use this to keep them under a iron fist and fuck them over."

"Like we do?"

Jean blushes even redder.

"That's not what I meant!"

"But you're right, thought. The people of Shinganshina doesn't go to the Emperor with their grievances, they come to us - but they don't do this because they're in awe of you. They do this because they think you weak. They are used to the way the Spider deliver justice, which is ruthless and swift. They're used to fear."

"Ruthless and swift, really! And you say this like it's a point of pride!"

"It is! And the proof is, even without any actual power, even unrecognized by the Empire, we still hold the hearts of the people in Shinganshina."

"You don't hold their hearts, you hold their balls and menace to squeeze them whenever they do something you don't like!"

"Even better."

"Ugh, Eren. And then you say that's impossible people in the past might have liked the Foxes over the Spiders!"

"Sure. You let them be lax and delinquent..."

"We let them _breathe_!"

"You have _breathed_ a corruptible guard within the inner circle of protection of the Prince, and it almost ended in disaster!"

"You..."

"What the shit is going on here?"

A man, short and stringy but still with the build of a soldier, materialized at the foot of the bed - he was so silent and quick, Eren realizes he's there only when his spear is already at his throat. He's wearing the Imperial Guard uniform, and he has a pale, almost grey complexion, a mop of black hair at the top of his head and tired black eyes.

"Captain! I didn't see you! It's Eren, Captain. The Spider that was...in there with me. You know him - I know you do, we picked him up together!"

The man raises an eyebrow and doesn't move his spear.

"How did he evade my guard?"

"He climbed from the outside."

"We're on the third floor."

Jean rolls his eyes.

"Spider. Have you forgot already?"

"What is he doing here?"

"Keeping me company, which is something you and uncle have failed to do."

"You need sleep, not chitchat."

"I wasn't sleeping either way."

"Is that so. And you, don't you have some sleep to catch, Eren?"

"I wanted to talk to Jean, mister, uh?"

"Captain Levi. Of the Imperial Guard," the man corrects him, curt. "And what it is, pray tell, that you wanted to talk about, that it can't wait tomorrow?"

Eren fights against a blush.

"He's my guest, isn't it? I can talk to him whenever I want to, Captain," he finishes, realizing halfway that he's probably being a little bit too harsh with this guy, who is just looking after Jean's well-being.

The man sighs and pulls back his spear with a smooth movement, leans on it like it's a stick.

"Well, you probably don't know this, but...actually, you can't. Only the inner circle of the Prince is allowed to have a private interview with him without previous arrangements."

"This shit again," Jean mutters under his breath before adding "Well, Eren is in the inner circle. He's my bodyguard, isn't it?"

"Nobody besides you approved this, not even Eren's father as far as I know, so, no."

Eren throws a sidelong glance at Jean, who is still staring at Captain Levi with that narrowed, stubborn expression.

"I don't care. He's my friend."

"Alright, be a capricious child, then. I will escort you to the door now, Eren."

"No, Eren!" Jean grabs his arm, then lets it go immediately after, probably realizing it's a breach of etiquette or something. "Who knows when they'll give you permission to come visit again!"

"The matter is not up for discussion. Come, Eren."

"Like hell. This is still my house, Captain," Eren says, standing up, trying hard to exude quiet confidence the way his dad does in these cases, banking on the centimeters he has on Levi, "and I am free to come and go as I want inside it."

"Ugh," Captain Levi mutters, his nose wrinkled in distaste. He doesn't look very intimidated - in fact, he looks like he thinks Eren is an idiot. Eren wonders if he should pull out the Other Face, that usually scares the shit out of humans. Thought this guy looks like a difficult customer.

"What is going on here?" a tall, blond man asks, entering the room. He resembles Jean a little, Eren thinks, with the same sharp and elegant type of face and pale gold undertones in his skin and hair, but he's broader, bigger overall, even considering the fact that he's older, and his hair is lighter. Also, he has more than one tail, thought half-hidden under his clothes, and they're of a reddish color - Eren has a vague memory that all those things mean _something_ , but for the life of himself can't remember what. One of his sleeves is empty and pinned to the side of the nightgown, which vaguely surprises Eren - he had imagined all those military titles meant nothing and most Foxes wouldn't do anything more risky than counting money, but then again, Jean did mention things such as hunting and playing sports.

He's followed by another couple broad guards, and Eren is beginning to wonder if he shouldn't provide refreshments. It's really weird to see so many people in one of their simple guest rooms - in Eren's room itself there never was more than two people aside from Eren at any given time, he's sure.

"Item number 133 in my list of reasons why I'm happy I'm not the one tasked with teaching the brat some manners," Captain Levi mutters. "Eren, this is Erwin Smith, Commander of the Imperial Guards. You can address him as Commander. Erwin, you remember Eren. You can address him as 'he who looked so much nicer when he was passed out'."

"Eren? I'm glad to see you're doing better, but what are you doing here?"

Eren doesn't answer, still throwing glances at Jean, who has however gone very quiet and subdued since the other man stepped into the room.

"Keeping Jean company, a field in which our shortcomings are many, it seems," Captain Levi ends up answering for them.

"Jean..." The Commander, still half-asleep, starts reciting what seems to be a well-known set of lines. "We discussed this. Just because you're bored, it doesn't mean that you can dispose of the hospitality and nice heart of the people who..."

"It was me," Eren interrupts, even as he wonders if it's the right thing to do. "I saw the light was on and climbed up here. I'm sorry if it was out of line, but, I wanted to see how Jean was doing."

There's a beat of silence as the Commander blinks the last of the sleep out of his eyes and considers Eren with a worried expression.

"Oh, now he's going to start," Jean mutters again, his tone morose, crossing his arms.

Eren is trying to pry his eyes away from the Commander's to ask him what he means, but he finds, with a shiver of terror, that he can't. The Commander holds his gaze for a long moment, the faraway fire deep in his pale blue eyes ensnaring Eren. It's just a second, and Eren realizes that if it kept up for longer he would have eventually been able to shake it off, but for that single moment, it's terrifying.

"Ugh, Erwin," the Captain mutters, in a tone curiously similar to Jean's. "Not to agree with the brat, but that was wildly unnecessary. He's just a kid."

The Commander turns his eyes away and brings a hand to his forehead.

"I needed to know if Eren was under a thrall."

"I meant _Jean_. He wouldn't be able to charm a Spider, not even if he tried."

"Maybe not _Jean's_ thrall. Our enemies are still..."

"I would have known! You could have _asked_!" Jean interrupts. 

Eren finds himself surprised - he sounds a bit like a spoiled brat, of course, but at the same time, something in his tone speaks volumes about the fact that, kid or no kid, he's still outranking everybody, here. Eren couldn't imagine himself being able to talk to a man who looks older than his father in such a tone. He supposes it's the kind of natural confidence coming from years spent ordering around people three times their age. 

"Is it so hard to believe that somebody might want to see me? How many times did I told you to not do that to my friends without my permission?"

"I'm sorry, but, Jean...we already failed to protect you once, and it almost killed you. We aren't going to make the same mistake twice."

"No, you're doing some brand new ones."

"Perhaps. But everything we do, we do it out of worry for you."

"Ugh," Jean chews on his lip, his expression all distaste. 

Whatever the man did seems to have reassured him, because they leave them alone again soon after. The Commander says that he'll let it slide this time, as an apology for intruding on what was "obviously a private confidence", and for being so rude to their host. His manners are so urbane and respectful he makes Eren feel like a perfect barbarian, considering he's the one who sneaked in through a window, and he was yelling in his face when the Captain stepped in. 

Jean is blushing furiously, still weirdly subdued, and angry, and Eren feels like it's his fault.

"I should have asked for that official meeting, shouldn't I," he says.

"No you fucking shouldn't have. I'm more and more convinced uncle is trying to segregate me away from the world."

Eren fights against the urge to grin again, since Jean still looks pissed and mostly focused on the little invasion.

"He's just being protective," he says, trying to sound reasonable. "You're basically his charge, that's what I understood, right?"

"Yeah, more or less. It's customary to leave the education of the family heir to the care of an uncle or cousin, since it's obvious Their Majesties would be too busy to take care of it firsthand," Jean explains. "My mother singled out uncle Erwin for the job. He's her brother and a cousin of my father."

"Wait, I missed a step. If the Commander is your mother's brother and your father's cousin, does this make your parents cousins, too?"

"Yeah. It's not uncommon. We try to avoid too much inbreeding, of course, but Fox blood thins quickly if we marry too much out of the clan, and really, don't make that face, you're technically the grandson of an egg and a corpse."

"Fair enough - and that only makes my point stronger. You're family _and_ his official charge. He regrets letting bad things happen to you and he's trying to make up for it by being a little overprotective now. You might not like it, but it's a legitimate way to feel. My sister has been like that too."

"Yes, but your sister has no say on who can be admitted to your presence and who doesn't. Had you gone through official channels to ask an interview with me, rest assured he would have denied you with some excuse, without even asking me, and if you think I'm pissed _now_ you should have seen how would I have reacted to _that_. You're my _friend_ , and I'll talk to you if I want to, and that's all that there is to it. If he wants to hold a party in my room after hours to make up for how shitty he was at his job before, he can go ahead and suit himself, it's not my problem nor yours."

"He's just concerned."

Jean snorts.

"About what? No way he can be fired, no matter how incompetent he proves to be. Nobody wants the ungrateful job of raising the little bratty princeling."

"I meant concerned about _you_. Remember you almost died."

Jean rolls his eyes.

"As if."

"You really don't think he cares about you?"

"If he did," Jean says, his rage taking on a sad quality, now, "he could prove it. He could pat me on the head once a week, and compliment me on how I play the harp, and stop checking if I thralled my friends into liking me, and answer directly when I ask him questions, and talk to me face to face every once in a while instead of always having to gather at least three guards, two menservants and Captain Levi before even considering the idea of having a conversation with me."

There's a brief silence, during which Eren considers what Jean just said. To him, the Commander's attitude seemed cold, but not unbearably so - and his worry and care about Jean were obvious. Jean might know him better, and know how much of it is affectation - but for all his short acquaintance with Jean he noticed how good he is at seeing only the bad in people, and this might be no exception.

"Yeah, seeing so many people pressed in this room was kind of weird," he ends up saying. "Is your life always so crowded?"

"They're being a little more jumpy since the kidnapping, but as a general rule, yeah."

"Well, at least you'll never get lonely!" Eren says, thinking of how empty the house feels since mum is gone.

Jean gives him a little sad smile. "Yeah, well...it all depends on what you mean by lonely, I guess."

~~_________________________________________________________________________________~~

Mikasa solemnly kisses him on the cheek - he feels like he should make a speech to her about responsibility and family or some other shit, but Mikasa doesn't need speeches about responsibility and family from anybody, Mikasa should be hired to make speeches about responsibility and family to other people.

His father doesn't kiss him, but does ruffle his hair, and then pulls at his ear with a tight smile as he tells him to be a good boy, in a way that makes Eren blush. His eyes prickle, but like half of the Prince's following is staring at him, including the Prince himself, so he pats his father's hand away and mounts the carriage.

Eren makes an effort to not look back at his house and family, only forward, to the road ahead of them. He took the seat next to Jean for precisely this reason, because like this he will have to turn his head deliberately to look at what he's leaving behind.

He knows nor his father nor Mikasa are the types to run after the carriages or something. There's that familiar burning in the back of his throat, tiny pinpricks in his eyes, but he's fine, he's got it under control.

Until he recognizes the stone that marks the edges of their property right up ahead, and at the same time he remembers that it was his mother who did that, pull at his ear when she wanted him to listen.

He's surprised his father remembers. He wonders how many other things does he remember about his mother, that he never shared with him because he's too private and Eren is too stubborn to ask.

He bends forward, puts his head between his knees.

"Eren? Are you feeling sick? Do we need to-" 

Whatever the Commander was saying, he gets silenced quietly. Eren doesn't rise his head, isn't really interested.

If they realize he's crying, nobody mentions it. Eren is happy they don't.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for disappearing! What happened was basically that while I had figured out a general plot for the story, there were a lot of kinks that needed sorting out, and then new subplots started popping out of nowhere, etc. so I wanted to fix everything before I posted more, to avoid having to change things while I went.
> 
> Like I said, I'm pretty new to writing longer stories, so that's probably the reason. I'll make sure to plan better before embarking in something like this next time!
> 
> This chapter is a good example. I had already most of it written out when I posted the last one, but I ended up throwing what I had and rewriting it from scratch because the story decided to take a huge detour here. I'm still not entirely satisfied with it, but trust me, it's much more interesting than what I had earlier. I hope you people keep on enjoying the lore as much as I enjoy coming up with it! Some things are probably unclear, but all will be explained in the next few chapters.
> 
> From now on it should be smoother sailing, with more regular updates.

The door of the cellar opens, and outside there's the prairie, the grass gently swaying in the wind, dotted with fireflies, but then trees start growing out, creaking like heavy doors, and there's a heartbeat to it, to the forest, still growing, but Eren can't find the heart, he can hear it beat, the whole forest beating with it, but he can't find it, he can't find it, the fireflies blinking with the rhythm, but Eren can't find it, and the heartbeat is getting faster and faster, and it's going to die, the whole forest is going to die, and the heart speeds up, the fireflies going crazy, and the heart is going to explode, it's about to explode, and it's all Eren's fault, but Eren can't find it, Eren can't...

Eren wakes up in the middle of the night with a start. His eyes, wide in his face, look for something familiar, but all he meets is faraway, cold stars, and the faint red light of a dying fire to his right.

"Nightmares again?" a female voice asks, prudent, coming from the side of the fire, and Eren blinks and as he's fully awake, he remembers.

He sits up, rubs his face.

"Yes," he answers. "But it's getting better."

"How so?"

"I don't remember them anymore."

Petra doesn't make a sound, but Eren can tell she's laughing.

"I guess that's one way of seeing it, uhu?"

Eren turns to her and smiles. He's been told his smile can look quite creepy, but Petra doesn't seem to agree - she always answers to smiles with more smiles. She's probably not supposed to, but she seems to have taken a subtle liking to Eren. Not in _that_ way - even if their age difference isn't that big, it's obvious she considers him something akin to a little brother.

Not that she's doing anything obvious - but still, lately, whenever Eren is awoken by nightmares in the middle of the night, Petra is always on guard duty not faraway from him. 

He wraps his blanket around himself and goes to sit next to her, close to the fire, his knee brushing hers as he crosses his legs.

"So I guess it's my turn now, eh?"

"I still have another hour or so. I can't sleep when my turn is on, my sleep patterns have adjusted like that by now."

Eren knows that's a bit of a lie, he knew since the first night, but he's grateful for it. By now, they have built this little routine, and she doesn't need to ask him if he wants to talk anymore.

He feels a little pathetic, having the need to cut some time away from his allotted sleep hours (that he needs, thank you very much) in order to chat with somebody, but it's hard. He's just been realizing what exactly it means to be out of Shinganshina. 

When his father asked him to consider what it meant to go to the Capital, to live in the middle of Foxes, Eren had considered what he thought to be a decent amount of facts. How much he hates Foxes, for example. How much of a corrupted cesspool Trost, the new Capital, will probably turn out to be, for another.

All of that was ultimately triumphed by Jean's...whatever it is that he did (he is still not entirely sure some subtle thralling wasn't involved, thought he's thinking it would be unintentional on Jean's part so he's inclined to forgive him), but thing is, he did try to consider all the facts.

Turns out, he failed to factor in the _two months of trip_ it takes to reach the Capital, all down there on the western edge of the Empire. In particular, he failed to account for the unshakable boredom, the fact that he's really not use to the routine of traveling (his longest trips were visiting Aunt Christine all the way across Shinganshina - takes no more than tree quarters of a day), and of course, the loneliness.

He was so used to being surrounded by people who loved him and cherished his company - Mikasa, obviously, Armin, when he was around, even his father, in a slightly more distant way. Here, nobody is that close a friend. Not even Jean - he came to realize that for all of their forced familiarity, he knows so little about him, what he loves and hates and what makes him tick. 

And even if he felt more at ease around Jean, it wouldn't help, because Jean and him have very few chances to spend time together, almost none face to face. The security for the rest of the trip was tightened up, and as the Commander patiently explained to Eren, the Spider clan is still widely considered an enemy by the Foxes, so his company is still seen as unsafe for the Prince. 

Plus, things as important as the appointment of a bodyguard for the heir to the throne and a peace treaty with an enemy need approval from the Emperor. It's a formality, but the chain of command is the chain of command, and all signs that the Commander and his side were bypassing it in order to favor the Spider clan, of all things, could be easily twisted into a betrayal by their enemies at court.

"We have spies," Jean said plainly, once that they managed to talk face to face briefly. "Spies who are going to refer up in the Capital how we gave special treatment to a member of an enemy clan way before securing his loyalty with the swearing ritual. Worse, even if we figure out who the spies are, we can't exclude them from all our conversations, because that would be suspicious in itself. By the way, try to avoid being too open with the others. Uncle is safe, and so are the humans on Levi's squad, but everybody else, please, bite your tongue twice before speaking."

Eren thinks the warning was well-intentioned, but useless. The rest of the convoy is all either Foxes or humans, and they don't talk to him. The humans are obviously terrified of him, and the Foxes either make faces when he approaches or pretend he doesn't exist. The only ones who talk to him are the Commander, Captain Levi and his squad. 

Those humans also happen to be the ones tasked more directly with the defense of the body of the Prince and the Commander, on special appointment of the Commander himself, and Eren is starting to see why. They are completely outside clan logic and court policy - they're just there to do their jobs to the best of their ability, and they have no interest picking a side in the complex politics of the Court.

He gets the impression that, while the Captain is spectacularly cold to him, he must have some sort of fondness towards him. He fully accepted him into the fold of his squad, and tasked himself with teaching him the basis of the art of fighting, so that he'll be good enough by the time they reach the Capital that he won't have to defend himself from accusations of being incapable. Which mostly means that Eren spends all of the lulls in the trip getting beaten black and blue, but it's the thought that counts.

That's one of the few perks of this long trip - the Commander and the Captain have time to make sure Eren won't arrive completely unprepared. So his days aren't as empty as he feared - even as he sits in the carriage, he often has books furnished by the Commander to busy himself with.

But it's still hard, to be alone in this mass of people who is either too prejudiced or too scared of him to talk to him, and when they do talk to him it's to talk business, or order him around, or point out something he's doing wrong.

Petra is the one exception, and if having the chance to talk with somebody who actually looks happy to see him means sleeping less, then Eren will sleep less.

"Eren?" Petra says, kindly, when she notices how he's a little lost in thought.

"It's nothing, I was just thinking...A month and a week still to go, eh?" Eren says, smiling a little sadly.

Petra laughs breathlessly again. They're talking in whispers to avoid waking up the people around them, and Eren knows that this version of her laughter is the silent one - he's heard her laugh loudly, when she's in the middle of her peers. Never managed to make her laugh out loudly himself, thought, mostly because despite the fact that Levi's squad, after a moment of diffidence, is making a valiant effort to welcome him, he still doesn't feel confident enough in his position to participate in their conversations.

"I prefer to think about it in the terms of three weeks gone already," she answers.

"Yeah, well..." Eren pulls at the grass next to his feet. "It feels like more."

"Being out of your house for the first time in your life is hard. I remember when I first moved inside the Castle, back in Trost...it was like losing a limb. I kept on crying."

Eren nods.

"But I was surrounded by my peers, and that made things a little better. The only person your age around here is Jean, right?"

Eren nods again, pulls some more grass out.

"I wish we could spend more time together."

She smiles.

"You're surprisingly fond of him."

He looks at her, feeling his ears go red.

"I, uh, is it that..." _obvious_ , he wants to say, but it dies in his throat.

"Surprising? Well, a little, yeah. He's not exactly the best at making people fond of him, especially not after so little time. It's why he had so many problems being accepted as the heir in court. He was considered a problem child."

"...problem child?"

"Outspoken, brash, unable to tame his temper."

"And those are _faults_? Shouldn't an Emperor be self-assured and confident in his opinions?"

Petra smiles.

"Of course. But an Emperor is also supposed to be diplomatic and clever and self-contained."

"Jean can be that!"

"Of course he can! But the opinion the court has of him is based on back when he was a child, and at the time he was indeed a spoiled brat, if what he says himself is to be trusted."

"Still, it's unfair the court isn't even giving him a chance."

Petra shrugs.

"They're worried about getting the best Emperor possible. They're not wrong. But yeah, it's annoying that we all have to keep on our best behavior." She puffs. "They've been telling me to get married, you know? Of all things!"

"What?"

"Apparently, it's not _decent_ for a young nubile woman to be part of the close guard of the Prince." She says _decent_ with a disgusted grimace. "As if! I'm marrying _if_ and _when_ I want to, and surely not because some old wheezing Fox is convinced all Foxes are irresistible temptation for humans!"

Eren feels his eyes widening.

"They can't possibly mean...Jean isn't interested in you like that, is he?"

"Of course not! He has never treated me any differently than any other member of his guard."

"Oh," Eren swallows. "Is there...someone he has shown interest into?"

Petra looks at him with a curious smile.

"Not as far as I know. Why?"

Eren sputters.

"I just want to know if there's something or somebody I should, like, watch out for in court? Like if I am his bodyguard I'm supposed to be also his wingman isn't it?"

Petra laughs silently again.

"Wingman, Eren?"

Eren retreats his head in his shoulders like he's a tortoise. Yeah. Honestly, Eren. Wingman? And let's not even delve into the causes behind his sudden curiosity.

"Yeah, well, you know what I mean," he adds hastily.

Petra's laughter dies a little, and she shrugs, her expression a little sad.

"It doesn't really matter. Marriages for Foxes of the Royal Family are almost invariably arranged." She collects her legs against her chest and leans forward on them. "In fact, if I am not mistaken Jean is already betrothed."

Eren's throat goes a little dry.

"Betrothed?"

"Yeah, to a second cousin of his. A really sweet gal named Historia."

Eren feels color drain from his face.

"Uhu. He never mentioned that to me."

Petra shrugs.

"He's probably half-forgotten. I had too, until right this moment. I'm not even sure if the promise is still valid. They should have already formalized the betrothal, but the plans for the ceremony fell through because of Marco, you know, so it's possible things remained up in the air and are never going anywhere."

"...Marco?"

Petra blinks at him.

"You don't know?" 

"First time I hear that name."

"Wow. Spiders do really live out of the world, isn't it?"

"Why, is it an important thing?"

"Yes, very important, but..." she chews on her lip. "I don't really feel qualified explaining it to you. I don't know the whole of the story, I'd probably tell you something very wrong. They never tell me anything, I'm just a human. The Foxes know it all."

Eren pulls at some grass again, in silence.

"I'll ask the Commander, then. Or Jean."

Petra sighs a little, relieved Eren isn't insisting.

"You do that. I'm sure they'll have all the answers you need. But please, make sure you don't ask when other people are around. Who knows what other people will think, if they hear you talk of Fox secrets."

Eren nods, but he feels a little frustrated. He turns to look at the carriage in which Jean is curled asleep (he's literally curled, he sleeps all folded on himself, Eren found out), wondering if he'll even get the chance to actually ask Jean. He does this a lot, staring at Jean's carriage and wondering when he'll talk to him next.

He doesn't even know why he craves the Prince's company so much - they still end up arguing, more often than not, and Jean is still weird and jumpy around certain subjects, and when they're together it takes so very little to make him remember of his nights in the prison.

And yet, he misses him. He's beginning to feel very fidgety about it, in fact. He wonders if he could go to sleep with his heart more at peace if he could look at Jean at least once, make sure he's alright, if his nightmares would be less terrible if he could delude himself into thinking he's helping keeping him safe.

It's silly. He knows he's safe, this is why everybody else is here, after all, that's the reason why he sleeps in a carriage while most other members of their little party just form a circle with their sleeping bags around the campfire.

But Eren still wakes with a start in the middle of the night sometimes, obscurely feeling he's failed him.

~~_________________________________________________________________________________~~

Jean hates sleeping in the carriage, he confesses the next day. 

Petra must have mentioned something to Captain Levi who said something to the Commander, because now they're traveling all together, Eren, Jean, the Commander and two servants. It's not really the private, light-hearted atmosphere Eren would have liked, but Jean is still good company, and being with him is definitely making Eren feel better. 

"It's stuffy and it smells ugly."

"But it's filled with covers! Isn't it softer than the hard ground?"

Jean shrugs.

"Foxes would rather sleep under the stars either way," he says, which is something that surprises Eren because he's always heard Foxes are very dedicated to luxury, and he says as much.

"Well, it depends on your definition of luxury. For me, the Forest of Wandering Lights is the most luxurious place one can wish for," Jean says with a certain solemnity. "You want nothing when you're in it, you just can't. Everything is beauty and quiet, nothing is left to desire."

"Wow. You make it sound like the best place on Earth."

"It is. You'll love it, it's all up your alley, all beautiful wild nature untouched by civilization. I can't wait to show it to you, I promise it's worth the travel!"

"I can't imagine Eren getting to see the Forest very soon, Jean," the Commander says, patient.

Jean's eyes go wide, and his face falls a little.

"Oh. Right."

"What's wrong?" Eren asks. 

The Commander sighs. Jean has closed off, looking out of the carriage's window.

"Foxes were born as a free, wild clan that belonged in the forests," the Commander explains. "In particular, our ancestral homeland is the Forest of Wandering Lights, under the Fire Mountain. You must have heard of it."

Eren nods, egging him to go on.

"We're creatures of fire and air. It was only when the humans started cutting the trees and building roads across our territories that we started developing the...other proclivities. We don't regret it. Civilization and all of its trapping are comfortable, of course. But there's a freedom in having nothing that we all crave, every once in a while, especially when we're old. This is why we keep the Forest of Wandering Lights to ourselves, forbidden to all other kinds, including humans."

"Forbidden?"

"Trespassing is punishable by death," the Commander says, his expression not moving a tick. "It's a harsh law, enforced rather strictly, but all the other places where we let others in slowly became places unfit for the kind of free life that Foxes want to lead. The Forest is our sanctum - where we raise our children and where we go to rest, to spend the last portion of our lives, until we can finally go back to being Light."

Eren thinks for a moment, chewing on his lip.

"I understand. We don't let anybody in the depths of Shinganshina either."

"Yeah," Jean says, "but I would have liked to show it to you either way."

"Maybe one day," the Commander says. "Who knows? Dutiful, loyal friends of the Foxes get permissions to go in, every once in a while."

"Oh come on, you know nobody got permission after Marco."

"Marco?"

Everybody in the carriage goes rigid, including the servants, and Jean bites his lip.

"He was the heir to the Empire until his premature demise, after which Jean was designated," the Commander explains curtly, throwing a long look at the servants - Jean is doing the same, his eyes going from Eren to them. And Eren understands - _we can't talk, we don't know if those two are loyal_.

"Oh, I see," Eren says, obedient. "I wonder how I didn't know any of that. We're really cut out of the world down in Shinganshina, isn't it?"

"That's a rich story, that one," one of the servant interjects. "The monster didn't know anything! Yeah, sure, innocent as a lamb, the Spider is!"

Jean throws him the meanest look Eren has ever seen happen to anybody's face, and the man shrinks.

"What are you saying, Elrick?" the Commander asks, his tone steely under the surface. "I'll warn you, I don't take insults to my guests lightly."

"I'm sorry, Commander-sir," the servant answers, all humbled down, now. "We've all be a lil' on edge, Commander-sir, and also, also there's a lil' bit of talk 'bout the Spider, yeah? Considering where we're going, Commander-sir."

"Why, where are we going?" Eren asks.

"You don't know that either?" the servant, apparently named Elrick, asks, looking like he doesn't buy that for a moment.

"Of course he doesn't, he doesn't have to trouble himself with organizing the trip, so he doesn't need to know all the details of the path we're taking," the Commander says, definitive.

"If you think he's dangerous, you should be happy we don't make him privy to our plans," Jean adds, less angry but more sneering.

"But if he didn't ask to go, Commander-sir, wouldn't be better off avoiding the place entirely, Commander-sir? Like we did when we came 'round, Commander-sir?"

The Commander does this subtle eyeroll that is there enough to be seen, but not evident enough to be downright unpolite - oh, he's _good_.

"I already had this conversation with half of the following, one would think word of it had arrived to you, considering how much you seem to _love_ empty talking. No, Elrick, we can't follow the same path we followed when we came because the monsoon season came rather early upon the Southern plains this year, and therefore the paths we used when we came are now unusable. Also, even in perfect conditions, going South would add another fifteen days to the trip or so, and we could afford that when we came, but not anymore."

"But that place, Commander-sir! The Horror from the Mountains! The Wall of Bones!"

Eren perks up.

"What? Are we really..."

"Elrick," Jean orders, low and dangerous. "Stop talking." 

Elrick's mouth closes with a click.

Jean sighs and relaxes a little. "Eren, we would have told you, sooner or later, but..."

"It's my fault," the Commander interjects. "I thought it would be better if we had everything prepared and organized before putting you through the distress of dealing with such dark things."

"Alright. Yeah. Slow down. What are we talking about?"

"Nothing!" Jean says. "People in our clan can get quite superstitious. It's the disadvantage of having great familiarity with magic without any curiosity about how it actually works. You start believing in dark influxes. Fluids. Curses."

"...curses do exist."

"Not of the kind we're talking about here. Thought I have to admit, even I find the idea of approaching the place kind of eerie. But after so many years..."

"What place?"

The Commander's eyes get dark, and his expression fixates on Eren, stern, still as a mask.

"Spider's Nest."

Eren's eyes widen. 

"This is why they've been particularly on edge towards you, lately," Jean adds with a sigh. "It's all so silly, isn't it? It's not like we're going in to wrestle with the Horror from the Mountains, whatever the hell it might be. We're just edging along the Wall. It's a shortcut."

"You're taking me to Spider's Nest."

Jean and the Commander exchange a glance.

"We wouldn't put you through this distress if it wasn't necessary..."

"Thank you," Eren says, smiling so wide his face hurts. 

Spider's Nest! He'll see Spider's Nest! Yeah, just the Wall of Bones, it seems, but still...Spider's Nest! The old Capital, before the Horror from the Mountain came, the greatest fortress in the Empire! He never thought he would get to see it, and instead they're taking him right there!

It takes a while for him to realize that everybody is staring at him with a discreet amount of surprise, and even, maybe, a hint of fear, especially Elrick.

Everybody except Jean, who smiles back, instead, oddly proud.

"I told you he could look creepy as hell, pretty eyes or not," he tells the Commander, the tone that of somebody who's won a bet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, the next chapter will explain stuff. Also I bet you can guess what's my favorite part of the whole _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy by now.


End file.
